Delilah's Weakness (17 page)

"‘S okay. When’s the next watch?"

"Um…three should be fine."

"I’ll take it."

"You don’t have an alarm—"

"Got my watch. Shine the light here a minute."

Delilah had to brace the light on the top of the gate to keep it from betraying the shivering that had begun at the sound of his voice. Dear heaven, she thought, has he been awake all the time? Did he know of her silent examination?

"Okay, tell me what to look for," Luke asked, frowning as he fiddled with his wrist alarm.

Ruthlessly disciplining her thoughts, Delilah ticked off the symptoms of a ewe in labor. And then, with a mumbled, "If anything happens, come get me," she made her escape.

She didn’t know how long she lay awake in bed, waiting for the shivering to stop and sleep to come, but when she woke again it was full daylight and she had that jarring guilty sense of having overslept.

Her first thought was:
Luke!
Her second thought was that the sheep must be all right or he would have called her.

Nevertheless, she threw on her clothes and tied her shoes with shaking fingers and almost ran to the barn, without stopping for a bite of breakfast. At the door she stopped to collect herself, breathing deeply of the frosty air and exhaling puffs of vapor. Luke always got the best of her when she lost her temper. No matter what, she’d be cool, calm, confident. She was the one in charge here. He was just the hired man.

The hired man was leaning on a stall gate midway down the center aisle. "Shh," he said when he saw her, and beckoned. "Come here."

Delilah went to join him. All her good resolutions bolted, leaving her quivering with fury.

Curled up in a far corner of the stall were two big, beautiful, healthy lambs, sound asleep. Their mother had her head in a bucket near Luke’s feet and was slurping with noisy gusto. Delilah recognized her immediately—it was old Blossom, one of the Hampshire cross–breeds that had been part of her very first flock. She was a bottle–fed pet, a sweet, stupid, gentle old thing, and a reliable mother.

"You didn’t call me." Delilah stated carefully, getting a grip on her anger.

"Didn’t see any need to," Luke said easily, reaching through the gate to scratch the woolly tuft on Blossom’s forehead. "This old gal didn’t need either one of us, did you, sweetheart?"

Delilah stared at him. speechless. His expression, like his voice, was possessively affectionate, almost besotted. She felt a creeping new emotion. Could it possibly be jealousy?

"She’d already had one lamb when I got up at three," he went on. "Seemed to be doing fine, so I just watched and waited. The second one came along about fifteen minutes later. No problems at all."

Delilah "Humph’d" noncommittally and opened the gate. She knelt first to check Blossom’s milk supply, then moved to the sleeping lambs.

"They’ve both nursed," Luke informed her with a proprietary air. "And I’ve already put iodine on their umbilical cords."

"And did you happen to notice—" Delilah began caustically.

"One of each. The female was first, but I think the male’s a little bigger."

After a moment Delilah dusted off her hands and stood up without disturbing the dozing babies.

"I gave her some hay and water," Luke added, still fondly rubbing Blossom’s grizzled head. "She sure was thirsty."

"They always are, after lambing," Delilah mumbled. He had, unerringly, done exactly the right thing. After clearing her throat she managed to add grudgingly, "Thanks." With her face averted she tried to slip past him through the gate.

His hand on the nape of her neck intercepted her. "‘Lilah?"

Her breath had backed up into her chest, putting a catch in her sigh of vexation. "I knew it," she muttered. "I knew this was going to happen."

"Knew what?" he asked, turning her.

"You can’t take orders," she said between her teeth, lifting resentful eyes to his face. "I told you to call me. I should have been here, dammit."

His gaze locked with hers and darkened. His mouth tightened, then relaxed. "If I don’t take orders very well it’s because I happen to have a brain, not to mention a certain amount of common sense. What’s the point of having help if you’re going to get up yourself for every ewe that lambs anyway? ‘Lilah, it was routine. Even I could see you weren’t needed."

While she stared at him in stubborn silence she was wondering why she was quarreling with him. She knew he was right. But her brain was mush. His fingers were stroking, massaging through the hair at the base of her skull.

He gave a short, exasperated sigh. Delilah saw a muscle work rhythmically at the hinge of his jaw as his hands touched the sides of her neck, her shoulders, her arms. "‘Lilah," he whispered, "why are you making this so difficult?"

"I wanted to be here," she said faintly, knowing he wasn’t talking about the lambing incident. "Can’t you understand that?"

He was frowning, rubbing the sleeves of her sweat shirt up and down with his palms. He had a disconcerting habit of doing that, she thought, as if he were considering tearing away the fabric to get to what was underneath. She found herself hanging on to his arms to keep herself from falling into the wells of his eyes.

After a moment he said softly, "Yes. I think I do understand. You’ve been going it alone so long you don’t know how to let go. Look, you have to learn that if you hire a man to do a job, you stand aside and let him do it."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again and gave her head a little shake. Luke pulled her gently toward him, testing her resistance. His soft expulsion of breath was a punctuation mark of frustration. "‘Lilah, why do you keep fighting me? Why are you afraid of me?"

In a voice she didn’t recognize Delilah heard herself answer, "I don’t know."

It was an admission. She heard him acknowledge it with a tiny involuntary sibilance. "Don’t you know I’d never hurt you?"

His eyes had never been so compelling, his mouth so sensuous and—
could it be?—
vulnerable. And she’d never felt so muddled.

"It isn’t that." Her words were slurred, as if she were drunk. She frowned, knowing that, like someone inebriated, she was about to say too much. "I think I’m afraid of losing control."

His laughter was gentle irony, not humor. "Would losing control be such a terrible thing?" Somehow his hands had slipped to her ribs, and now, though it was the cotton of her sweat shirt that he manipulated, it was the cool kiss of silk that caressed her skin. He tilted his head, smiling as he felt and analyzed that intriguing duality. "It might be… I think it would be a wonderful experience for both of us to lose control."

Through cotton, through silk, the warmth of his hands burned the sides of her breasts as he pulled her to him by slow, inexorable degrees. When her breasts brushed his chest, her stomach knotted and her nipples hardened painfully inside the restriction of her camisole. With a sharp edge of panic in her voice she cried, "That’s not what I meant. I meant control of what’s mine."

"Ah, ‘Lilah." His hands were slowly roaming over her back, holding her close, making her feel his body with all the length and breadth of hers. "You can’t help fighting me, can you?"

No, she couldn’t. She shouldn’t give in. But she had a feeling she was about to. Was this, she wondered, what it felt like to drown? Was there a moment, finally, when you grew so weary of the struggle that it felt good, so good, to give it up? Almost…like coming home.

"‘Lilah," he whispered, placing a kiss like a precious gift on the top of her head. "I don’t want anything that belongs to you."

She lifted her face, searching his eyes.
Drowning…

"I just want you."

Her eyelids dropped, and she felt the warm, moist brush of his lips on each one.
Drowning…

"Just you."

Her head fell back into the cradle of his hands. Her lips parted, and his breath merged with hers. With a sigh she let herself be immersed in his deep, drugging kiss. Her mind shut down and feelings took charge. Without anybody telling them to, her hands roamed where they pleased, learning and savoring new shapes and textures, and then moving on, hungry for more.
Raspy morning beard on hard male jaws; warm, taut neck, pulsing with life; round, palm–fitting shapes of shoulders and biceps; fabric, harsh and alien.
She understood, now, the urge that made him want to cast that restriction aside. Warmth and wanting poured over her, a gentle inundation.

Reality abruptly intruded, like the painful rush of cold, life–restoring air to her lungs. Her conscious mind broke free and struggled to the surface. Her instinct for self–preservation was stronger than the desire to surrender. She broke from him, gasping, "It’s morning!"

"I know," Luke said softly. "We’re not strangers anymore."

Delilah understood the reference to that strange first– morning kiss.
Love in the morning…
In near–panic she put her hands flat on his chest and pushed back against the circle of his arms.

"I just got up," she said, knowing she was babbling like an idiot in her desperation. "We haven’t eaten breakfast yet. I have chores—"

They both froze, muscles tensed and gazes locked. Above their harsh and rapid breathing they could hear the distinct and unmistakable sound of a hoof rhythmically scraping concrete. Another ewe was in labor.

** ** **

"‘Lilah… ‘Lilah. Wake up, Blue Eyes, I need you."

Delilah clawed her way upward toward wakefulness, fighting a desire for sleep that clutched at her like seaweed.

"‘Lilah. Come on. babe, I think we’ve got trouble."

She put out a hand and touched the cold flesh of Luke’s face. Without thinking, she hooked both hands around his neck and pulled herself out of unconsciousness and into the warm haven of his arms.

As his arms tightened around her he gave a surprised  chuckle. "Come on, darlin’," he said firmly. "Wake up." He gave her a swift, hard hug and put her gently from him.

Delilah rubbed her eyes and muttered. "Wha’ time is it?"

"Just past two. Sorry to wake you. but we’ve got two going at once, and I think that two–year–old you were worried about is in trouble."

"Okay," she murmured. "Be right there."

Luke nodded and left her to pull on her clothes and gather her sleep–starved wits. Thanks to him, she was averaging around five hours sleep a night—though she suspected he got by on considerably less. She knew there were times when he’d sat up alone with a laboring ewe—just to make sure—when he’d assured her he’d slept through a routine delivery. And, she acknowledged as she picked up her flashlight and stepped into the cold, the strain was beginning to show. Though his smile was as devastating as ever, she’d noticed his eyes had developed shadows and his face a certain gauntness. She had an idea that, in spite of the way he put away food, he’d lost weight. He hadn’t had a single break since lambing started. Yesterday, during a lull that promised to be the calm before another storm, he’d insisted she be the one to go into town for mail and groceries and a restorative lunch with Mara Jane, while he kept vigil over her flock.

How incredible. I’ve come to depend on Luke MacGregor!
Gradually, little by little, he’d become a part of her life. Now, after not much more than a week, she found it hard to recall a time when he hadn’t been there. He was her rock. And yet there were times when she’d never felt more like an island.

Luke was a natural toucher, but he touched the newborn lambs the same way he touched her. He was often gentle and solicitous toward her, even tender, yet he seemed to be holding himself apart from her. She found herself talking more than she usually did—or liked to—just to fill up his quietness, telling him things about her childhood, her father, herself, that she’d never told another soul. Luke was a good listener, and Delilah always reflected on their talks with the vaguely dissatisfied sense of having given away more than she’d received in return.

Luke rarely told her anything about himself. Except for a letter that had come for him the day before, bearing a Sacramento return address for Thermodyne, Inc., and its logo, he’d had no contact with anyone at all. And the letter hadn’t been welcome. He’d tightened his jaw and handled the letter almost warily, finally tucking it unopened into the inside pocket of his flight jacket.

When she thought back to her malicious little fantasy about the Gentlemen’s Quarterly model up to his elbows, et cetera, she felt small and ashamed. Now, whenever she watched him down on his knees in the wet straw, helping a new baby learn how to nurse, his bare torso gilded with sweat and still showing the imprint of his straw sleeping pallet, something alien and frightening bumped against her ribs, clutched at her throat, and stung and smarted behind her eyes.

At those times she thought:
Dear heaven, It’s really happening. I’m falling in love with him.

Luke looked up when Delilah came into the barn, damping down, as had become his habit, all physical response to her presence. It had become almost a natural reflex, like blinking.

"What’s she doing? Delilah asked. Her voice was still gravelly with sleep.

"Nothing," he told her grimly. "Absolutely nothing. Water broke maybe forty–five minutes ago, and since then she’s done nothing but act miserable."

"And the other? Which is it?"

"The short one with the white face."

"Oh, the old Dorset?" She flashed him a ghost of a smile. "That’s another of my pets, you know. Her name’s Daisy Mae. She’ll probably have white lambs. What’s she doing now?"

"Very little, but I don’t think she’s in as much trouble as this one."

"Okay, let’s take a look," Delilah said, opening the stall gate.

"Legs are folded back." she said tersely a few minutes later. "And it’s a big lamb. Too big."

Luke said nothing, watching her impassively and marveling, as he always did, at the strength in those childlike hands and slender arms, at the fierce determination in the set of that soft mouth and delicate chin. And he thought:
She’s incredible. And so incredibly lovely.

Sometimes, though, strength and determination, no matter how fierce, aren’t enough.