Deborah Camp (32 page)

“It will be,” he said, blowing on a spoonful before testing it. He winked, tipping his head to one side. “Perfect, honey. Just perfect. If it were any better, I couldn’t stand it.”

Zanna stared into her own bowl of beans and basked in the sweet stirrings his compliment triggered. Girlhood dreams of making a fine supper for a grateful husband floated to her from the far reaches of her mind; pieces of dreams about sharing and caring and raising a family bubbled in her imagination. It was lovely to think of having a family life again, she thought as she ate without really tasting her own culinary accomplishment. It had been so long since she’d known the cozy insulation of kin. She studied Grandy through the concealment of her lashes, seeing him from a new perspective.

He’s my closest relative. My husband. Does he feel a special connection to me as I have come to feel for him? Does he ever wonder, as I have, what our children would look like? Does he look ahead at the years and see me at his side? If my heart has a song just for him, does his heart hum it, too? And if I allow these questions to reflect in my eyes, will his eyes answer them?

Her steady gaze attracted his. He cleared his throat and his cheeks tinted pale pink beneath his tan. Rocking to one hip, he fished in his pocket and withdrew his handkerchief.

“I … uh …” His hands shook. “I found something of yours today.”

“You did?”

He unfolded the red handkerchief and laid it next to her plate so she could see the gold jewelry nestled in it. “It’s got your initials on it.” He started to reach for the glass of water at his elbow, but his hand froze halfway there when Zanna let out a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

She grasped the necklace and brought it close, her eyes filling with tears and her lips trembling. Her expression was so rapturous that Grandy’s own eyes burned with unshed tears.

“My locket,” Zanna said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Papa gave this to me on the Christmas just before he died.” She closed her eyes and clasped the locket to her breast in a moment of thankfulness. “I never thought I’d see it again. How did you find it?”

“Out in the field. I plowed under the burned soil today and the spade turned it up. Is that a picture of your father?”

“Yes.” Tears wet her cheeks. “Duncan tore it from around my neck the night he …” She allowed a brief sob to escape before she pressed her lips together.

Grandy shoved up from the table, whirling to pace its length as impotent fury thundered through him.

“Thank you, Grandville. You can’t know what this means to me. To have this again. It’s a miracle!”

Hanging his head, Grandy fought off the pounding fury he felt against Duncan and Fayne. God, he wished he could erase the pain they’d inflicted on Zanna! But he couldn’t and that was what angered him, what ate at his gut and spread despair through his troubled heart.

“Do you think the chain can be repaired?”

“Yes.” He squared his shoulders and returned to the table. “Let me see it.” He took the necklace, warmed by her sweet-smelling skin, and examined it. “I can fix it. Give me a few minutes.”

“Very well. I’ll wash up the dishes while you work on it.” She laid a hand at the back of his head and bent to drop a cool kiss on his forehead. “You’re such a dear man, Grandville. You’ve blessed me. Truly, you have. I only wish I could be better for you, but it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

He mused happily over being called a “dear man” while she gathered up the dishes and took them into the kitchen. A minute later, when he and his trusty penknife had almost repaired the broken link in the chain, his mind locked on her last remark.
Better for him? Too late to be better for him?
What the hell did
that
mean?

The delicate work busied his mind and hands. The sounds of dishes clattering and water splashing waltzed in from the kitchen while Grandy made the necklace as good as new. If only he could piece together her virginity just as easily, he thought. It wasn’t right for a girl to be violated on her wedding night. The initiation into married life should be as gentle as a spring shower. Anger shook his hands and he forced it out of him so that he could test the chain without breaking it again. It held.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, he recited in his mind. And everyone had a weak link. What was Duncan’s? How could he break that man as cruelly as Duncan had broken Zanna’s youthful spirit?

He felt her nearness, not needing his eyesight to know that she was standing a few feet from him, looking, smiling. During the past few weeks, his awareness of her had reached new heights, heights he had never known before with any other woman. He was an extension of her, in tune with her whims, her wishes, her quicksilver moods. He no longer felt as if he were her doting servant. No, he had grown up in her eyes. He was now her equal, her full-fledged partner. As night was to day, as the moon was to the sun, as pleasure was to passion, so was he to her.

“Any luck?” she asked.

Grandy’s eyes sought hers. “I’m loaded with it these
days,” he said, looping the necklace around his forefinger and extending it toward her. “My lady, your locket. Shall I help you put it on?”

“Yes, please.” Dutifully, she turned her back to him, hands clasped in front of her, waiting patiently like a well-mannered child.

Grandy smiled, finding her every action captivating. He held each end of the necklace and brought it up and over her head. The clasp was ornate and barrel-shaped. Grandy poked one end into the other, tested its hold, then took Zanna by the shoulders and turned her around so that he could see the rich gold gleam against her eyelet bodice.

“Isn’t that pretty,” he said, watching her looking down at the piece of jewelry that meant so much to her.

“Zanna?”

Her gaze lifted to his. “Yes?”

“Why does Duncan wear gloves all the time?”

She shrugged, her mouth turning down at the corners. “Fayne said something about Duncan being burned in a fire. His hands are badly scarred.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“No. Never.”

“A man burned by fire … would he start one?”

“I have a feeling Duncan likes to start fires.” She fingered the locket as if drawing strength from it. “One time he and Fayne left here after talking about a merchant in town who had refused to extend them credit. The man’s store burned to the ground that night and I heard Duncan talking to Fayne about a wall of flames and how one little spark can create hell on earth. I’ve always felt that Duncan is afraid of fire only when he’s not in control of it.”

“When did he burn his hands?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I believe it was when he was a boy. Do you think he
didn’t
start the fire last night?”

“No. I think he did. I’m just trying to piece the man together, that’s all. I’d like to know what makes him tick.”

“Evil makes him tick.”

Grandy took her by the shoulders. “What did you mean when you said you wished you could be better for me, but that it was too late?”

“I don’t know,” she said, dropping her gaze.

“Yes, you do. Tell me.”

One shoulder rose and fell. “I know, that is, I
understand
a man’s wish to have an unsullied woman, that’s all.”

“Unsullied?” he repeated, finding the word hard to expel. “What kind of nonsense is this?” Still holding her by the shoulders, he took a half step back so that his gaze could sweep her from head to foot. “How can you refer to yourself in such terms? You, so pristine and pure of heart. You, so ignorant of the bedchamber’s pleasures. As far as I’m concerned, you’re practically a virgin.”

“I’m not,” she said.

“You are.” He dipped his head to capture her lips, brushing his ever so gently upon hers. “There are so many places within you that no man has touched. You know what I wish?”

“What?” she asked, the word a mere wisp of sound.

“I wish you’d let me explore those places, dear Sooz. I wish—oh, how I wish—that you’d let me chart the hidden canyons of your heart and scale of peaks of your passion and swim forever in your blood.”

“Grandy …” She said his name as if invoking a spell.

“It’s only fair, isn’t it? You’ve roped and tied me, honey, so why can’t I lasso you?”

Making a loop with her arms, she flung them around his neck and raised herself to his hungry mouth. The contact of his lips on hers sent a tremor through her and she pushed away.

“Are you sure, Grandy? Do you really still want me? I don’t want your pity or your—”

“For God’s sake, Zanna, look in my eyes and see for yourself. Is there pity in them?”

“No,” she said, searching and finding the golden glow
that made her heart take wing. “I want to fly away, Grandy. Like the last time when you took me up, up, up. I want that again.”

“Sweetheart,” he said, scooping her up into his arms and moving with male grace to her bedroom, “it’ll be different this time. No, listen to me,” he said when she started to speak. “I want you to be my wings.” He set her on her feet in the bedroom and smiled when confusion tipped her head to one side. “Make love to me, Sooz.”

“What?” Her eyes grew large with doubt. “But I can’t! I don’t know how to—”

“Please, darlin’,” he urged. “You know how. Just follow your heart. Love me, Sooz.” He took her wrists and brought her hands up to his chest, flattening them against his shirt. “I’m at
your
mercy, honey. This time,
you’re
in control.”

The power he offered her was overwhelming. Zanna’s throat thickened with emotion. The depth of his understanding of her situation staggered her. She felt the steady beat of his heart against her palm and it seemed to anchor her, giving her a solid base from which to launch herself into the unknown sea of sexual prowess.

As she stripped Grandy of his shirt, she felt as if she were preparing for a voyage. Anticipation mingled with excitement inside her while she feasted on the hair-roughened territory stretching from shoulder to shoulder. She swept a lock of his sandy hair back from his lined forehead and in the dying light, she saw a hairline scar she’d never noticed before.

“How did you get this?” she asked, touching her lips to it.

“Duncan’s horse,” he murmured, his voice heavy with desire. “When he tried to run me down in the field.”

“He’s Satan’s son, that one.” She kissed the place again, then the tip of Grandy’s nose, and finally the full
glory of his mouth. “But I believe he’s met his match in you.”

Parting her lips, she moved her hands down to his waistband and unfastened his trousers. She slipped her arms around him, her hands just inside the band, then realized that he hadn’t slipped his tongue into her mouth as she’d expected.

Ah, yes! she thought.
I’m
the aggressor.
I’m
the navigator, the captain, the first mate.

Seizing her responsibility, Zanna sailed her tongue inside the warm cavern of his mouth. She felt a jolt pass through his body and was elated to realize she had been the cause of it. He moaned into her mouth as the sensitive tip of her tongue explored slippery walls, smooth teeth, and finally found its mate. Sensing the upswing of his arms and knowing that within a second she’d be captured, Zanna moved swiftly out of his reach. She held him at bay with a steady gaze while she freed the buttons down the front of her dress and tugged it off her shoulders, down her arms, and over her hips. Taking the two steps up to her bed, she sat on the edge and removed her shoes, stockings, pantaloons, and only then crooked a finger at the man who stood only a few feet away, all atremble and ready to do her bidding.

He shucked his trousers before moving like a streak of lightning. Beside her on the bed, he rained her smooth shoulders with grateful kisses. Zanna slipped beneath the coverlet and top sheet, her hands guiding Grandy, urging him to follow. He reclined on his back beneath the sheet, tossed out the last article of his clothing, then crossed his hands behind his head and arched a quizzical brow.

“Well?” he challenged. “What’s next? I’m waiting.”

Stretched out beside him, she found herself at a loss. What to do now? Stalling for time while she charted her next trip, Zanna sat up and unlaced her chemise under Grandy’s watchful eyes.

“Stumped, Sooz?” he asked, his voice gentling upon her pet name.

“Yes. I’m … I don’t know what I should …” She sighed, lifting her gaze. “How does a man go through this time and time again? What confidence, what courage it takes!”

“May I make a suggestion?”

“Please,” she said with a rush of relief. “Please, do!”

He laughed with her, careful not to laugh at her, and his hands moved to her hips and legs. She accepted his help, flinging one leg over him, sitting comfortably across his thighs, feeling the next suggestion made by his pulsating erection.

Knowledge, born of love and nursed by passion, sprang full-grown within Zanna. It filled her head, her heart, her being and showed her the way of lovers. She rose to her knees, inched up until she was poised above him, then took him in both hands and guided him inside of her.

Grandy, his hands at her waist, arched his head back at such an extreme angle that his shoulders lifted off the mattress. In his closed-eyes, open-mouthed expression, Zanna saw a raw passion that she, too, longed to share. She craved it, lusted for it. Oh, how she yearned to sprout wings and fly, fly, fly over imaginary barriers and land in that place where Grandy was already feeding his sexual hunger.

Her most fervent wish was granted when Grandy groaned deep in his throat, tightened his hands at her waist, and thrust up while his hips began to grind against her. Zanna flung back her head, gripped by a sensation so white-hot that it vanquished everything in her mind except the image of wings unfurling, fluttering, fanning the flames. Heart and soul lifted and leaped through a ring of fire where the world spun out of control and the only reality was the intense pleasure of a union that was heavensent.

“Grandy, Grandy, my love,” she cried out, her hands
splayed across his chest, her thighs pressed tightly to his sides. Shudders of passion zigzagged through her, brought on by the splash of his living seed against the walls of her woman’s womb.