Makin' Miracles (17 page)

The gesture touched her heart. “If you listen carefully, you'll hear the veery singing. I think she's down that ridge in a tree. I can't see her.”

Spencer stood very still, listening, until the flutelike song came again. He scanned the trees for the bird. Catching the direction, he put up his camera with its long zoom attached and searched the area.

Zola saw him smile as he clicked off a few shots. “Did you actually see her?”

“I think so. Is she a little brown thing that looks like a jenny wren?” He showed her the digital shots he'd taken.

“Oh, yes—that's her.” She smiled in pleasure. “It's rare to capture a picture of that little songster. Nana will want to see this photo for sure.”

“I'll frame it for her, and you can give it to her for a gift.”

She reached up to put her hand around his neck and pull him down so she could kiss him. “I love to spend time with you,” she told him.

“And I you.” He kissed her back.

Later, after Spencer had taken all his morning photographs, they sat lazily on the quilt they'd spread in the grassy meadow looking out over the blue mountain ranges. They'd eaten sandwiches and now munched green, seedless grapes while they enjoyed the views.

“Look.” Spencer pointed out over the ridges. “You can see a bit of Fontana Lake there between the mountains.”

Zola saw the reflection of the water where he pointed. “I see it,” she said. “It's incredible we can see that far from here.”

He lay back with his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.

While he rested, Zola got up and explored the meadow on top of the mountain. She picked a few random wildflowers, though she knew she was really supposed to leave them undisturbed. But there were so many flowers here. And they hadn't seen another soul all day on the mountaintop.

She came back to the quilt with a small handful of treats, squatting on her knees to look at them.

“What have you got?” Spencer pulled up to look at her find.

“One or two wild iris.” She held out a single flower to him for a closer look. “Did you know there are about four varieties of these in the park? This purplish variety is called blue-eyed grass. Their yellow centers attract the bees. There are a whole sweep of them down to the right.”

She pointed and then held up another flower with a grin. “And of course my favorites are the buttercups—these happy yellow flowers.”

As he pulled to his knees beside her, she playfully tucked a buttercup into a buttonhole in his shirt.

Smiling with pleasure, he tucked another into her hair behind her ear.

Zola touched his lips with her fingers. She loved seeing him smile like this. “You know, Ralph Waldo Emerson said the ‘earth laughs in flowers.' They make me want to laugh, too. They are such joyous creations.”

She tucked a flower into the pocket of Spencer's shirt, letting her fingers trace a circle around his heart.

His eyes darkened. “You drive me crazy with desire at times like this, Zolakieran. You are so alive and beautiful.”

He wrapped his arms around her and leaned in to kiss her. Zola threaded her hands into his hair and kissed him back with joy.

It was a beautiful moment as they stood on their knees on the old quilt, wrapped in each other's arms—with the floral meadow and the stunning views of the Smoky Mountains all around them.

She heard Spencer sigh as his mouth drifted from her mouth, across her cheek and into her hair above her ear. “You know I'm falling in love with you,” he whispered huskily.

Zola's heart sang. “And I with you, Spencer Jackson.” She found his lips again and they fell onto the blanket in a tangled embrace.

Spencer lay on top of her, and the feeling of his body spread over hers in the warm sun was wonderful. They kissed and murmured sweet things to each other, reveling in the moment of discovering their awakening love and their response to each other.

Zola bit Spencer playfully on the shoulder and blew softly in his ear. She felt an odd change in his body then, a stiffening. Something was passing through his mind. He was slipping away from her.

Frustrated with it, she searched for his lips again. He kissed her in a different way this time—more intensely—and his breathing escalated. He slipped his tongue between her teeth and took their kiss much deeper, his hands roving more freely over her body now.

Were things getting out of hand? Zola wondered as she responded to him but felt oddly detached in the process.

Spencer's mouth fell to her neck and then drifted down toward her breasts. She wore only a sleeveless spaghetti-strap top, leaving much of her upper body exposed to the sunshine. Spencer's lips roved over her skin. But nothing felt right.

Suddenly she heard it, the voice in his head. He was saying another woman's name in his mind, thinking of someone else while kissing her. Reliving some past moment of passion.

“Geneva. Geneva,” she heard him say in his thoughts.

Shocked, Zola let the picture come sharply into focus now. And she knew. He was thinking of his former lover. Even worse, he was thinking of the woman who was his brother's wife.

Zola felt revolted. She pushed Spencer off her, slapping at him to make him stop kissing her. Angry now.

She pulled herself up from the quilt, shoving him farther away from her. Not even wanting him to touch her.

His eyes opened to look at her in confusion.

“How dare you!” She wrapped herself in her own arms protectively. “You're lying here with me, kissing me, telling me you think you're falling in love with me, and you're thinking of your brother's wife!”

She reached out to slap at him as he tried to take her in his arms again.

“Don't you even
dare
to think about putting your hands on me, Spencer Jackson—not now or ever again.”

He sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair. “I wasn't thinking about her before, Zola. And I meant what I said. But something you did . . . something that happened with us . . . brought some memories back for a minute. It doesn't mean anything.”

She glared at him. “It doesn't mean anything that you're saying another woman's name in your mind, thinking of another woman's kisses, remembering another woman's passion and love when you're with me? You must think I'm crazy to accept that.”

He ran a hand around his neck nervously. “I'm sorry, Zola. I sometimes have these flashbacks. Things come into my mind from the past. I can't help it.”

She crossed her arms more tightly against herself. “I can accept a lot of your problems with the past, Spencer. Even those things you haven't felt led to share with me yet. But I'll
not
accept another woman's memory slipping into our lovemaking. That's past the limit for me.”

She shivered. “Especially when it's your own brother's wife you're lusting after and thinking about. That's disgusting. Did you have an affair with her after your brother married her? Is that part of the guilt and pain you carry around, that you betrayed him with his own wife?”

His face distorted in anger now, and he clenched his fists tightly, frightening Zola for a moment. “We were engaged.” He bit out the words. “Geneva and I were engaged. And Bowden stole her away while I was at college. Married her and took her away from me. Just like he took so many other things away from me. It was just one more thing he stole. He enjoyed it, too. He called to tell me about it with gloating, pretending he was trying to break it to me kindly. Telling me she'd never really loved me, that I should be glad I found that out before I married her.”

Zola studied his angry face. “And
did
she love you, this Geneva?”

“Yes!” His fists clenched and unclenched at his side. “She told me she did. She showed me she did.”

Zola began to gather up her things. “People often say things they don't mean, Spencer. And they often display passion when their heart isn't really in it.” She gave him a significant look. “Take today, for instance.”

She watched his eyes move to where she'd begun to load up her backpack. “We need to talk about this, Zola. It's not what you think.”

“No. It's
worse
than I thought.” She pushed him off the quilt so she could roll it up. “It's not only the hurts from your family and the hurts from your brother's bullying you're suffering from, it's the hurt of losing someone you loved. And you're
not
over it yet.”

“Zola, you're making more of this than it is. . . .”

Tears sprang to her eyes now. “I won't be second best, Spencer Jackson. And I won't share your heart with an old love who still lives in your memory in that large a way.”

She brushed back her tears. “She was very beautiful, wasn't she? Very accomplished. Very poised. The kind of woman men's eyes turned to whenever she walked into a room.”

He sat silent, scowling.

She caught his eyes with hers. “And I am everything that is different from her, aren't I? That's what I've felt so many times—you comparing me with her. Measuring me against her.” Her voice broke in a sob. “I always came up short, too, didn't I?”

Spencer reached out a hand toward her. “It wasn't like that, Zola.”

“Wasn't it?” she challenged.

He ran his hands through his hair again, obviously searching for the right words to say. But not finding any.

“I want to go home, Spencer. I'd walk so I wouldn't have to ride with you, but it's too far.” She stood up.

As Spencer packed his gear, he tried saying words to smooth over the moment. But none of them felt right or true to Zola.

On the way down the mountain, he tried once more. “I wish you could understand, Zola. It was a hard time for me when Geneva and Bowden married. And my parents and Rita didn't seem to see any problem with them getting together, blotting me out of the picture.” His hands tensed on the steering wheel. “It happened like it always did. Whatever Bowden wanted, Bowden got, and Mother and Dad just acted like it was all right. They didn't even seem to realize how I felt. Or care.”

She looked at him. “How many years ago was this, Spencer?”

“Twelve,” he admitted sullenly.

“You've pouted over this for twelve years? Felt sorry for yourself and felt abused for twelve years?” She spat the words out angrily at him. “What an incredible waste!”

“You don't understand!” The words burst out of him angrily. “It wasn't right!”

“Oh, get over it, Spencer. Half of life isn't right. But you have to focus on the part that is. And enjoy the part that is. Otherwise, you'll be a very miserable person.” She pulled away from him to lean against the car door, wanting to put as much distance as possible between them.

He made no reply, but she saw his hands grip the steering wheel again and heard him breathing heavily with his emotions.

They rode in silence all the way down the mountain. Finally, Zola spoke again. “They share children by now, don't they? They have children and I'll bet you've never even seen them.”

He snapped his reply. “Why should I want to? Why should I want to see their boys?” His voice sounded tight and pained.

“Oh, Spencer, because they're your nephews. They're your family.” She turned to him with sorrow in her heart. “And they're children, only little boys. Like Eddie who we found in the mountains. None of this is their fault and yet you've made them pay for it by withholding your love from them all these years. By not letting them get to know their Uncle Spencer.”

He took a curve in the road too sharply, obviously upset.

“It's easy to talk about it reasonably, Zola, but it's not easy to live it. Some things are that way. You can't understand them without being in them.” He turned anguished eyes toward hers.

Her voice grew soft then. “What I understand is that you're the one who's made yourself suffer all these years for what happened. You're the one who stopped the clock. Everyone else went on. That's sad, Spencer.”

“I don't want your pity, Zola.” His voice sounded harsh.

“No?” she asked. “But everyone feels sorry for those who can't let go of the past, Spencer.”

When they pulled up to her house, Spencer said quietly, “I wish you'd try harder to understand, Zola. That was a bad time for me. It comes back on me sometimes, that and other times. But I meant what I said about my feelings for you. And I'm sorry you saw into my thoughts. It's one of the hardest things about being in a relationship with you—that you see a person's secret thoughts. It's not really fair, Zola.”

She looked over at him before she climbed out of the car. “No, I guess it's not really fair. But I'm truly grateful I was given the sight to see the truth about things today. It hurts enough as it is to learn the truth. I would have hated to learn it when my heart was even more deeply involved.”

He sighed. “Listen. I'll call you tonight. We'll talk some more.”

“No, Spencer, don't call. And we won't talk some more tonight—or tomorrow night—or anytime soon.”

She shut the car door after getting out and then paused, looking back at him through the open window. “I wish you the best in finding your way out of this bad journey you've kept yourself living in, Spencer Jackson. I told you once, and I'll tell you again, you
can
step out of this if you want to. But I don't want to be with you until you make a positive step in that direction.”

“Zola, please . . .” He started to say something else, but Zola stopped him.