Lissa- Sugar and Spice 1.6 - Final (17 page)

Different?

It was what she’d thought might not exist. It was sex that made the world tilt under your feet, that made you understand why the French called the last seconds of passion
la petite mort—
the little death. It was joy so wild, so sweet that it turned you inside out.

Was this what her sisters felt after sex? After being with the men they loved?

Not that this had anything to do with love. She didn’t love Nick, she wasn’t falling in love with him, she wasn’t, she wasn’t…

The room spun.

She sat up straight.

“What?” Nick said.

“I—I have to get that bread into the oven pretty soon.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.” She swallowed drily, then smiled. “I am a practical woman.”

“You are,” Nick said, “an incredible woman.”

One last, quick kiss and he let go of her. She went to the sink, washed her hands and then went back to work, shaping the dough. It was mindless stuff and that was what she needed right now.

Nick watched her for a couple of minutes. Then he walked over to her, swept aside her hair and kissed the nape of her neck.

“Thank you,” he said softy.

She leaned back against him, closed her eyes and he kissed the back of her neck again.

“For what?”

“For being here. For who you are. For making me happy.” He paused and cleared his throat. “I haven’t been happy in a long, long time, Duchess. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like.”

Lissa turned in his arms.

“Nick,” she said, rushing his name, rushing the words because he had never before revealed this much of the darkness that she knew haunted him, “whatever happened… Your accident… If you ever want to talk about it…”

He silenced her with a kiss.

“No,” he said, with a finality that sent a chill through the room. A muscle knotted in his jaw. Then he kissed her again. “See you for drinks on the back porch at five.”

She nodded. “Drinks” meant Cokes or ginger ale. Nick had said, casually, that he was sticking with soft drinks for a while, but she was welcome to have wine if she preferred. She’d said that ginger ale was fine. What she’d really wanted to say was that maybe sharing his secrets with her would help him.

She sighed as she watched him walk away.

Her lover was a man of secrets.

He shared all the bits and pieces of his life with her, from caring for the kittens to his plans for restoring the house, but he never mentioned his wounds or the accident that had left his leg so horrendously damaged.

He would not talk about any of it.

But he was healing. She could see that for herself.

He’d switched from the crutch to the cane; there were times he didn’t need it at all. There wasn’t the same darkness in his eyes, either, but something still haunted him.

She knew a little about injured legs. She’d even had a fracture herself when she was sixteen. Her horse had thrown her, but she’d gotten off easy with what the doctor had called a malleolus fracture, which sounded a hell of a lot more dramatic than it had actually been.

You grew up in ranching country, you saw breaks that were far worse. Splintered tibias and compound fractures, even fractures of the femur, that biggest, heaviest of the bones in the leg.

Taming horses, riding them day after day over rough terrain, was not for the fainthearted. Movies romanticized ranch life; reality was far from romantic.

Nick’s leg had been more severely damaged than she would have thought possible.

She’d seen the scars.

They were terrifying. Brutal. She’d wanted to weep the first time, but she’d known that it had been difficult enough for him to let her see them. Instead, she’d kissed them. The purple ridge high on his thigh. The evil-looking row of what she was sure had been staples that ran the length of his calf. The jagged line that almost encircled his ankle.

Nick had flinched at the first brush of her lips. He’d tried to stop her.

“Am I hurting you?” she’d asked.

“No. No. I just—I just didn’t want you to—to see—”

She’d put her mouth to his leg again. He’d shuddered. Sighed. And, gradually, she’d felt his taut muscles relax.

Lissa shaped the last of the dough into a loaf.

She hated people who went in for amateur psychiatry, but you didn’t have to be a shrink to know that Nick was hurting in more ways than one. She wanted to help him. To ease that hurt.

To make the shadows that occasionally still darkened his eyes disappear.

Maybe she had to be satisfied knowing that she made him happy.

For now, it was enough.

* * *

Lissa and Esther had established a pattern.

Esther showed up at noon, did whatever needed
touching up around the house, and joined Lissa in the kitchen around two.

Together, they readied things for the next day’s breakfasts; they put up the lunches the men would carry with them the following morning, and Esther played sous chef as Lissa made dinner. The men ate at six; Esther tidied up and loaded the dishwasher.

That left Lissa free to relax with Nick before the fire in his office over glasses of ginger ale topped with slices of lime before they had dinner together. If the weather was warm enough, they had their drinks on the back porch.

First, though, there was what had become the dinner ritual.

Tonight was no exception.

The men trooped in, clean-shaven, hands and faces shiny and scrubbed. As always, Ace was their spokesman.

“’Evenin’, ma’am.”

“Good evening, Ace. How was your day?”

“Excellent, ma’am. Truly fine.”

“I’m happy to hear it. Everything’s on the sideboard, but if you need anything, Esther’s right in the kitchen.”

“We’ll be fine, ma’am. You jes’ go on and join the boss. He’ll be waitin’ on you.” He blushed. “I mean, there’s no need to worry about us.”

“Thank you,” Lissa said politely. She went back into the kitchen, took off her apron, grabbed her sweater, said goodnight to Esther and headed out to the back porch that extended the length of the house. As she shut the kitchen door, the door to Nick’s office opened and he stepped outside, too.

Her heartbeat skittered. Was it really going to do that each time she saw him?

“Hey,” he said softly.

She smiled. “Hey, yourself.”

Brutus greeted her joyously.

“He acts as if we’ve been apart for ages,” she said, laughing.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I know just how he feels.” He cupped Lissa’s face with his hands and lifted it to his for a tender kiss. “For instance, it seems forever since I did that.”

Lissa touched the tip of her finger to his mouth.

“Two hours and twenty-two minutes.” She smiled again. “Not that I’m counting.”

He linked his hands at the base of her spine.

“I figured it was too cool out here tonight. How about if we have our drinks in the living room for a change?”

“We’d have to go through the kitchen to get to the living room.”

“So?”

“So, it turns out your crew is keeping an eye on us.”

“I’m afraid to ask. What’d they say?”

Lissa did a creditable imitation of Ace. Nick laughed.

“OK. We’ll have to detour. Go in through my office—”

“—sneak down the hall….” She sighed. “I haven’t sneaked around with a boy since I dated Jefferson Beauregard the Third.”

“Jefferson Beauregard the Third?”

“The Third. He’d take a fit if you were foolish enough to forget that number!”

“And he made you sneak around, huh? Doesn’t sound like a southern gentleman to me.”

“Oh, I liked the sneaking-around part.” She grinned. “Hey, I was a teenager! But the southern-gentleman thing? Trust me. He wasn’t.”

Nick gave a mock growl. “I ever stumble across old Jeff, he’ll be in trouble.”

“He already is.” Lissa giggled. “He’s on wife number three.”

“I guess he likes that number.”

She giggled again. He smiled.

“You have a great laugh, Duchess.”

“When we were kids, my brother Jake used to say that I sounded like a donkey braying.”

“I’ll have to add him to that guys-who-are-in-trouble list.”

Lissa smiled. “Actually, you’d like each other.”

“Jake. Didn’t you mention him before?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “I told you that he’d been wounded.”

She could almost feel Nick’s quick mood change.

“In Afghanistan, right? Doing something heroic.”

“He’d never say it was heroic, but yes, it was.”

“Most of the guys who are heroes don’t think of themselves that way.” He cleared his throat. “What did you say happened to him?”

“He lost an eye. He piloted a Black Hawk and he was trying to rescue some men who’d been trapped in a firefight. His chopper went down and—and he was lucky he got out alive.”

Nick stepped away from her and tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.

“I’m glad he made it home.”

“Yes. We are, too.”

An owl cried out from somewhere in the gathering darkness. The sound was mournful, eerie, and it made Lissa shudder. Deliberately, she searched for something that would bridge the sudden silence.

“So,” she said brightly, “what about that ginger ale?”

The silence stretched on. Then Nick cleared his throat.

“It’s Coke tonight. We’re all out of ginger ale.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them both. “And I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. “I like Coke.”

He laughed, exactly as she’d hoped he would, and the mood lightened.

“I keep forgetting all that fancy training of yours. But we’ll have to hurry. It’s almost time for us to head out.”

“Out?”

“We have a seven-thirty reservation at the dining room at
Clearwater Pass
. It’s about an hour’s drive from here.”

The swift look of delight on her face was everything he’d hoped for.

“
Clearwater Pass
? The new lodge? I’ve read about it. The restaurant is supposed to be wonderful.”

“Well, we’re going to find out.”

“Oh, that’s lovely! Really lovely.” Her smile tilted. “Except—”

“Except what?”

“I know that you—that you’ve been keeping a low profile.”

“You mean, I’ve been hiding.”

“It’s just that people are sure to recognize you at a place like
Clearwater Pass
. And if you’re doing this for me…” Lissa looked into her lover’s eyes. “We don’t have to go anywhere. I’m happy right here.”

Nick drew her to him.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” she said simply, “I am.”

He bent his head and kissed her.

“Me, too. But we’re going out tonight, sweetheart. It’s time you had a break.”

“Esther’s been doing the meals on weekends.”

“Do not argue with me, woman,” he growled, and softened the teasing words with a smile. “Besides, I want to show you off.”

“But—”

“No
buts
,” he said firmly. “It’s time I left the cocoon. And you need a change of scene and somebody to serve you once in a while.” He sighed and rested his forehead against hers. “We’re going to have to do something about the setup here, Duchess. We need more privacy. More help for you.”

“Not for me, but the privacy idea sounds wonderful idea. How are you going to do it?”

“I have some thoughts.”

“That sounds mysterious.”

“A little mystery can be a good thing.” He smiled. “Besides, it’s getting late. We have to get moving.”

“Especially since I have to change for dinner.”

“Change? You look just right to me.”

“Men,” Lissa said, leaning up to kiss him again. “What do men know about women and clothing?”

“We know how to separate them from it,” Nick said gruffly.

She leaned back in his arms.

“You just said it was getting late.”

“Trust me.” He caught her hand, brought it between them, and she caught her breath. “As long as you’re willin’, ma’am, this ain’t gonna take very long.”

“Why, cowboy,” she said, batting her lashes, “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

They made love with sweet urgency, showered together, dried each other off and dressed for the evening.

She put on one of the two just-in-case outfits she’d packed: the black cashmere sweater and the long, embroidered denim skirt, plus the boots Nick had bought her.

He changed to more formal jeans—“No holes in the knees,” he said—and a black turtleneck topped by a black leather blazer, and a pair of well-worn but handsome Tony Lamas.