Hunter's Choice (12 page)

Hunter

Spending time with just Jessamine became nigh on impossible
in the next several days. There always seemed to be someone near her, whether
it be her aunt, uncle, Charlie, Aaron, or John Baker, the man in the green
uniform. Jessamine explained to me surreptitiously that he was with the
Department of Fish and Wildlife, but that was about the only conversation she
and I had for the last three days and it too involved Aaron.

The more I saw of Jessamine in her daily life, the more
determined I became to see if she would allow me to become a part of it. Dave,
Charlie and myself set to work outside, clearing brush, repairing bird pens and
even building a few new ones. Jessamine and Aaron could be found with the birds
or in the kitchen with Margie, who was undisputedly Queen of that particular
kingdom.

At supper the night Jessamine’s family arrived there was
discussion of something called the Olympic Bird Fest which was to happen in
around a month’s time, Jessamine seemed both agitated and excited by the event
and I asked why.

I love being out and doing demonstrations with our
permanent residents, but I can’t exactly do the talking. Sometimes I assist
Jaye with her birds, but I wish Moonchild Owl Haven could have its day too. 

She bit her lush lower lip between her teeth and I bit back
a groan. She had no idea just how alluring she was. I shifted in my seat,
suddenly uncomfortable in my jeans and thought about it.

“Why don’t I do the talking?” Aaron asked, and I smiled at
the boy.

Yeah?

“Yeah. You handle the birds, tell me what you want me to
say, we can do a whole presentation.” He shrugged.

“Hell, why didn’t you say something before Jess? I would’a
done it with you.” Charlie, as ever, spoke with his mouth full. Jessamine
smiled an amused smile.

You, talk in front of an entire group of people… kids
even…

He coughed. “Right, you got a point. Make the boy do it.” he
returned to his food which was indeed very good.

“That settles it then. Hunter, you, me and Charlie will get
this place into shape. Jess and Aaron will get some kind of presentation
together and…”

“…I’ll be in my kitchen.” Margie said, getting up with her
plate. Dave chuckled.

Jessamine was positively glowing with excitement in her seat
and it made my heart light. She had been withdrawn to a certain extent over the
last several days as well. I would catch her writing in a spiral notebook but
she wouldn’t let any of us see what it was she was writing. Almost as many
pages had been torn out, torn up and tossed into the potbellied stove or burn
barrel out back then had stayed in the book. With each sound of rending paper
she had looked a combination of frustrated and stricken and I had longed to be
a comfort to her as I was my second night here.

I couldn’t forget the feeling of her warm, soft skin against
my own. She had molded herself against me so fine, and had slept so soundly.
She wore very little to bed I’d belatedly discovered. A tank top and a pair of
barely there sleep shorts and that had driven me a wee bit mad with a desire to
slip them down her shapely legs. One of those shapely legs had gone over my own
as she’d slept and it had been a real lesson in self-control
not
to take
her right then.  

I wanted the woman, badly and often but I also, more than
anything, wanted her to want me too.

Now, three nights removed from the conversation about the
bird festival we sat at supper again. Jessamine smiled shyly across the table
at me and I returned the gesture easily. I honestly could not remember a time I
smiled so often. Charlie gave his customary thanks to the earth and the
creatures who inhabited it before we began to eat.

“So Hunter,” Margie addressed me, “How do you like it here?”
she asked and I answered her honestly.

“I like it very much. The area is beautiful.” Of course when
I said beautiful, my eyes drifted to Jessamine. Her cuts had healed to deep dark
scabs which were flaking into bright pink scars. Those in time would fade even
further. Her bruises were that awful garish green and yellow, the darker
patches gone to muddy gray-brown. She had dutifully been drinking the tea I
gave her every morning without complaint and I was glad for it.

Her bruises would heal in half the time and what’s more, and
more importantly, so would her spirit. The tea having a calming effect, just
enough to help ease her through the worst of the emotional turmoil such an
attack left upon a person.

“Enough to stay around a bit longer?” Margie was asking,
breaking me from my reverie.

“Now Margie, knock it off.” Dave grumbled. Jessamine was
turning a deep red from her lovely throat to the roots of her coppery hair.

“What am I missing?” I asked, perplexed.

“Margie’s trying to set you up with Jessamine.” Charlie
grunted. Jessamine rose from the table abruptly and began clearing plates. I
laughed incredulously at Margie’s audacity. It was the wrong thing to do.
Silverware was dropped into the bottom of the sink with a clatter.

“Jessamine wait!” I rose from my seat but she was already
out the door and striding for the barn.

“You guys are dicks.” Aaron was frowning at us all.

“Watch your mouth young man!” Margie was admonishing.

“Margie why can’t you leave well enough alone?” Dave was
intoning but I didn’t care about any of it, I was striding out the door after
Jess.

I found her in the barn. She was standing at Sadie’s cage, a
Spotted Owl with an immobilized wing she’d named after her nurse at the
hospital. Her fingers were wound in the chicken wire of the front of the cage
and her face was against her arm. She sniffed and my heart broke for her a
little.

“Don’t cry love.” She jumped, startled and wiped at her eyes
self-consciously. I sighed.

She waffled her hands back and forth in front of her and
looked a little helpless.

“Talk to me.” I whispered and she gave me a look that was a
mixture of stricken, heartbroken and exasperated. I couldn’t stand it. I went
to her, stopping with barely a hairs breadth of distance between us and looked
into her eyes. Willing her to tell me how she was feeling. My hand came up of
its own volition, my thumb grazing her jaw gently.

“I’m n-nn-not good en-nn…” suddenly I didn’t want to hear
what she had to say anymore. She was good enough, she was everything I wanted
and so I closed the distance between our lips, gently brushing mine over hers,
sipping at her little gasp of surprise.

Her lips were warm and sensual beneath my own, I pulled her
lush, lithe body tight against my own, my claiming of her mouth growing a
little more insistent and she didn’t disappoint me. Nothing this woman ever did
could… Her lips parted and she let me in, kissing me back cautiously at first
before losing herself completely. Ceding control to me.

She tasted like the warm air from a sun soaked sea. Her
sweet, rich, lavender scent filling my sense of smell. I let my hands wander
her back, coming to rest at the small of it, where it arched in so
provocatively. Her hands rested one on my chest, the other on my bicep and I
wanted desperately for them to wend around my neck.

As if she could read my thoughts, that is exactly what she
did, her gentle fingers tangling in my horse tail of hair at the nape of my
neck. She molded to the front of my body perfectly and I could have stayed that
way forever, her in my arms, mouths tasting, tongues dancing…

Someone cleared their throat by the barn door and I drew
back from her reluctantly. She blinked at me in surprise and slowly lowered
herself back flat footed onto the cement floor. I smiled indulgently at her
before turning to see Aaron in the door.

“Awkward.” He said in a sing song voice and I saw Jessamine
color out of the corner of my eye before she buried her face in my chest. I
laughed, a delighted sound and hugged her to me.

“Yeah sorry, I just didn’t want you guys thinking I was
being some kind of peeping perve…” He shifted from foot to foot and looked
decidedly uncomfortable.

“You’ll be doing it before long yourself lad.” I reminded
him. He looked stricken, and Jessamine looked up at me sharply.

“What?” I asked.

“Dude! You totally just made it sound like Jessamine and me
would be making out. She’s like my sister!” He and Jess traded a horrified look
and the laughter left my body in one long peal. They traded conspiratorial
grins and the atmosphere in the barn greatly relaxed.

“Jess, Margie’s real upset and crying in the house. Dave and
Charlie are being Dave and Charlie and don’t know what to do with it…” Jesses
shoulders slumped and she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know how she does it either.” Aaron put up his
hands.

“Does what?” I asked.

“She does this kind of thing to Jess all the time. Does
something to upset her, then ten minutes later is the one crying and the
wronged party in need of comfort. It’s totally bizarre and it’s one of the
reasons their relationship is so tense.” Aaron lifted a lean shoulder into a
shrug.

Jessamine was giving him a look that was clearly thanking
him for oversharing. I smiled.

“Go, we will finish this talk eventually.” I sighed and very
reluctantly let her slip from my grasp. She heaved a sigh and nodded, making
her way to the house.

Aaron stayed behind and was grinning. I frowned.

“What?” I asked, casually walking towards him.

“That was hot,” he said, “Gross because she’s like my
sister, but totally hot.” I scowled at him and snapped out my arm, hooking it
‘round his neck and rubbed my knuckles against his hair.

“Argh!” he laughed and I laughed and for the first time I
felt as if I truly belonged somewhere.

Jessamine

I left the barn, my body awash in tingles from head to toe.
I wondered if my lips looked as swollen as they felt and decided that they
probably didn’t. I was on fire inside, a desire I had never known could be this
strong circulating through my system. It was a concentrated effort to make one
foot go in front of the other, carrying me away from him. My core ached with
wanting and with every step I took in the direction of the house I resolutely
told it to shut up. Excitement surged in my chest and I stopped in my tracks
for a second to revel in it.

Hunter had kissed me…
and oh my God what a kiss it
had been! I wanted to bounce up and down and squeal like a teenage girl but I
resisted the urge.

I didn’t know if it was possible for someone to taste like
starlight and a cool night wind, but that was exactly what Hunter’s mouth had
been like as it moved over my own. My rapidly beating heart slowed its pace to
match my walk as I went into the house.

I loved my Aunt Margie but she did this sometimes, well,
okay, a lot of the time. It was just as Aaron had said. She would do something
that upset me, embarrassed me, or what have you and when I went off to collect
myself she’d start up crying and would make it out like everyone was mad at her
and would keep crying until we all came together to soothe her ruffled
feathers. Uncle Dave, Charlie and I had caught on fairly quickly when I was a
teenager and the worst of it started.

I guess in some ways it was Aunt Margie’s rotten luck that
she got me as her charge and as her one chance at being a mother figure. I was
so not a girly girl. I mean yeah, I played with dolls and liked the color pink
for a minute when I was little but for the most part I preferred foraging and
fishing with Uncle Dave and Charlie over sewing and gardening with Aunt Margie.

A lot of things mothers took for granted with their girls,
shopping for dresses to the dance, or spending an entire weekend baking, were
lost on me. I mean I loved cooking and baking with Aunt Margie, that was the
one thing that held us together… pretty much the only thing. Everything else
had turned, one way or another, into a battle royal with her though.

I went into the side door and into the kitchen. Charlie was
at the sink rinsing dishes. I could hear Uncle Dave and Aunt Margie in the
living room. She was in full wail. Charlie winced and mouthed silently at me:

“Do something Jess before I…” and he made a motion as if
violently strangling something. I choked back a laugh and he scowled at me. I
pointed a finger at him and nodded my head once. He grimaced.

Yup, he knew Aaron had told on him. I sighed silently and
moved into the living room and fidgeted from foot to foot.

“Hey kiddo, your Aunt Margie here thinks you’re mad at her.”
Uncle Dave’s eyes sparkled with humor at me above Margie’s head where she cried
noisily into his shoulder. I gave him my sweetest smile that said I’d get him
later for this and quickly whipped my expression into that of a pious little
angel when Margie turned around.

I did what I always did in this particular scenario and put
out my arms and went in for the hug. After a short time everything was right in
our worlds again and Charlie started shouting something from the kitchen about
if we were done being women in there to get back in the kitchen and make some
pie. Only there was some swearing, and a bunch of Uncle Dave yelling back a
play by play and then an amused Hunter and Aaron coming in through the back
door asking if there was pie, they’d heard Charlie shout it after all.

Pretty soon the lot of us were in the middle of fits of
hysterical laughter to the point we held our sides. The laughter would start to
settle, then someone would start giggling again and pretty soon we were all
laughing again.

God I loved my life, and my family and the addition of
Hunter to it which sobered me a bit. Hunter really was an excellent addition to
the people in my life. I smiled and went into the kitchen with Aunt Margie on a
diplomatic baking mission. I didn’t know what was happening between Hunter and
me but for once, I was cautiously optimistic about having a man in my life.

He was different, and I was hoping that kiss meant that he
was for real interested in me. I pushed the insecurities to the side for now
and concentrated on making apple pies with Aunt Margie. It was getting too dark
outside to get much more accomplished for today so Charlie and Aaron made to
leave for the evening while Dave and Hunter quietly discussed the next day’s
plans in the living room. I smiled a little to myself and quietly retired to my
bedroom as soon as the pies were out of the oven and I could politely take my
leave.

Once in my room I crept over to my bed and lifted the
mattress. I pulled out the spiral notebook and held it in my hands. I swallowed
and drummed my fingers lightly on the back cover in indecision. I took a deep
breath and let it out slowly and crept back to my bedroom door. I could hear
Hunter’s musical voice as he spoke to Margie and Dave below. I quickly and
quietly tiptoed down the hall and into Hunter’s doorway. I listened for several
heartbeats to ensure I had gone unnoticed and slipped the notebook under his
pillow.

Another deep breath, some more patience, and I bounded
noiselessly back into my room, turning the knob, shutting the door and slowly
easing the knob so it would latch without a sound. I let out the breath I was
holding and changed swiftly into a cami and sleep shorts for bed. I lay for a
long time and almost got up twice to retrieve the book, but I didn’t.

I trusted Hunter. Didn’t I?

Finally I heard his tread upon the stair and I let out an
explosive breath. Well, it was done. I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly.

God I hoped I wasn’t making a horrible mistake.