The Way Home (9 page)

T
HE LAKE HAD
shifted to a smoky blue platinum by the time they’d finished Shelley’s delicious meal and half of the bottle of wine she’d left open and breathing on the table along with a bunch of wildflowers.

Shelley definitely had her matchmaking hat on tonight, Jess thought as she got up to clear the table.

“Leave it. I’ll clean up later,” Ty insisted, and refilled their wineglasses. “Let’s have one more glass and enjoy the sunset on the deck.”

“I really should go,” Jess said, but found she couldn’t put much conviction behind it. “I need to relieve Kayla. Bear needs to go for a walk before it gets much later.”

Because he looked thoroughly amused, she stopped.

“What?”

“Only two excuses?”

He was right. She was digging, but the hole was already there, so she jumped into it. “I’m not making excuses. I feel like I’m neglecting my dog and my business.”

“Because you took one day off  ? When was the last time you had some time off for yourself, by the way?”

“I take time off,” she lied. “I don’t want to take advantage of Kayla.”

“Kayla is no one’s fool. If she wasn’t up for covering for you, she wouldn’t have volunteered.”

She set her shoulders and thought about another protest, but her heart wasn’t in it. “One glass. Then I’ve got to go.”

“See? That really wasn’t so hard, was it?”

No. It hadn’t been hard at all. In fact, it had been too easy. Like everything with him was easy. She should be wary of the way he eroded her defenses, but she simply couldn’t marshal the will. Tomorrow. She would regroup tomorrow. Tonight she felt mellow and tired in the best possible way, and she selfishly wanted to indulge in it. So when he handed her the wine and then opened the door for her, she walked outside ahead of him.

Dusk had fallen softly over the lake. Lights glowed from cabin windows. The distant sound of laughter and the smells of a dozen different dinners mingled with the scent of pine and the soothing sound of water slapping gently against the shore.

He eased a hip onto the deck rail and looked out over the water. “Nirvana. A man could get used to this.”

“Someday, I want a house right on the lake.” She joined him at the rail and followed his gaze. “I’ve lived here most of my life but never directly on the water. Always above the store.”

“I totally get why you’d want to be on the lake,” Ty agreed, looking from his wine to her. “Colorado is beautiful, but this place gives it a run for its money. It’s so pure and unpopulated. What I don’t understand is where are all the people? The land development? The condos? Why doesn’t everyone in the world know about this place?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I want it to stay one of the best-kept secrets of all time.”

“Even though more people means more revenue for you?”

“Even though. I get by. And I like Kabby the way it is.”

“You’ll get no argument from me. Thanks for showing me the lake today. I had a really great time.”

“My pleasure.” She sipped her wine, aware of him watching her. Aware that she felt too aware. Despite the warm summer night, a little shiver eddied through her, setting all of her erogenous zones tingling along with a few warning bells.

In the far distance on the north shore, the faint beam of a red signal light blinked on and off above the jagged, ink-black tree line. Someone had started a fire in the fire ring down by the shore, and a few people had gathered around. Their laughter blended with the mellow strumming of a guitar and the night sounds of lapping water and the hum of crickets and the steady breathing of the man standing beside her.

“We still have a bit of unfinished business to deal with, you know.”

She knew exactly where this was going. Just as she knew that if she’d intended to stop him, she’d have been gone by now, instead of sharing the moonlight and the wine.

“Unfinished business?” Her voice sounded breathless, and oh, she hadn’t wanted it to.

“The race? The bet?” He pushed off the rail and moved in closer.

“I cooked your darn hot dogs.” she said and made him smile.

“That was the loser’s part of the bet. We never got to the winner’s part. Loser made the fire and cooked. Winner got to pick a prize of their choice.”

He’d moved in very close beside her now. She could feel the heat from his body. See his chest rise and fall beneath his shirt. Smell the lingering scent of sun and water and the sunscreen she’d insisted he wear.

“Ah . . . right. I forgot that part.” That, too, was a lie. She figured she already knew what he wanted. Figured she’d probably let him take it.

“I didn’t forget. Not for a second. I’ve been waiting for the right time to claim it.”

She let him lift her wineglass out of her hand then and set it with his on the small table between the deck chairs. “I want to kiss you, Jess. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first time I saw you.”

He moved in to her then, wrapped his arms around her, and slowly pulled her close.

And she liked it. “You say the word, I back away. But I ask you to remember something.” He smiled then, that oh-so-easy smile that made everything feel safe and right and so hot she thought she would self-combust. “You
did
agree to take the bet.”

“That I did. I absolutely did.”

When was it, she wondered as he pulled her closer, that she’d stopped reminding herself that she did not want to get involved with another warrior? When was it that wariness had transitioned to anticipation and yearning and obliterated her carefully thought-out arguments to keep a safe distance between them?

Honest truth? She didn’t know, and in this moment, she didn’t care. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it so badly she ached. And if he didn’t “claim his prize” soon, she wasn’t altogether certain that she wouldn’t do some claiming of her own.

T
Y FELT A
slight give of muscle and resistance as some of the tension eased from her small body. He could feel her heat now. Feel both the anticipation and the indecision, and chose to believe the anticipation won out.

A bigger man might have given her more time to adjust to the idea. A bigger man would not have played the “You lost, I won, and to the victor go the spoils” card. He wasn’t the bigger man. Not tonight. Tonight he was a man who held a beautiful and desirable woman in his arms. A woman who was skittish and uncertain but interested, and he’d be damned if he’d let her hesitation sway him.

When she turned her face up to his, he didn’t hesitate. He lowered his head and drew her closer. Pressed his lips to hers.

And felt something close to magic.

Tentative. She was oh so tentative. He needed to remember that, and he needed to remember why. He needed to cater to her uncertainty as she got used to the fit of their lips, the melding of their bodies, the touch and heat and scent of his skin. It cost him. Holy God, it cost him, as he let her become accustomed to his mouth, to the warmth and the wetness, to the give and the take, reining himself in before things got out of control and he took this to a level that would probably scare them both.

His patience paid off. Her body seemed simply to liquefy as she finally relaxed into him, lifted her arms around his neck, and invited him to know her better. To know her mouth. To know the press of her breasts against his chest. The fit of their hips. And
please, God
, he needed to keep it together enough to let her set the pace when he wanted to indulge in the taste and the sweetness of her and the slow and steady melting of her guard as she gave up and gave in.

She kissed him back now. Now she asked for more. Her mouth open, tongue seeking. Her breath was warm and tasted of wine. Her heartbeat pounded, rapid and wild against his chest. Her skin warmed beneath his hands when he found her bare back beneath her tank top. And she smelled—
Lord
—she
smelled of sun and pine and wood smoke and home, and he wanted to do things to her that would make her scream his name and beg him for more. He wanted to feel the depth of her passion and her fire and promise her that when they made love, it would be amazing.

Only this was supposed to be a kiss. Just a kiss. A friendly introduction to the prospect of many things in store. And it was up to him to dial things down before she panicked and bolted like a wild animal whose self-preservation instincts had kicked into high gear.

So he made himself take them both down slowly. He pulled back by degrees, easing them back to a place where it was safe and sane and his head wasn’t spinning and she didn’t have to worry about losing control. Hell, where
he
didn’t have to worry that he’d pick her up caveman-style, carry her back into the cabin, and toss her onto the bed.

Finally, reluctantly, he ended the kiss and tucked her head beneath his chin. Then he held her while his heart slammed and she clung as if she needed him to hold her upright.

If he had any sense, he wouldn’t feel so pleased with himself. He’d be more than a little alarmed by the way she’d turned him inside out with one single, simple kiss.

“Wow,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her hair.

She sucked in a serrated breath and started to pull away.

“No. Not yet. You leave me like this, I may keel over.”

But he understood that reality had hit her. She’d let him kiss her. More, she’d kissed him back. Kissed the first man who was not her husband.

“It was only a kiss, Jess,” he reminded her gently. “An amazing kiss. But that’s all it was.”

She didn’t make an attempt to move again, but she didn’t say anything, either. So he gave her something else to think about.

“I have to fly back to Florida tomorrow.”

He sensed a slight tensing of her shoulders.

“I didn’t know what to plan for. You could have sent me away. We could have ‘remembered big’ and realized there was nothing here to hang on to.” He chuckled softly. “I don’t know about you, but I think we put
that
notion to bed.”

He finally pulled back, cupped her shoulders in his palms, and flexed his knees so they were at eye level. “And as much as I’d like to take
you
to bed, right now, I’m not going to. I want you to think about it, though. I want you to think about us.”

Oh, he could see she was doing a lot of thinking.

“I need to go back. I need to take care of some things at work so I can clear my schedule. That is, if you want me to clear my schedule. Tell me it’s all right for me to come back.”

He didn’t know who was more surprised when she moved back in to him, kissed him softly, and whispered against his lips. “If you don’t come back and finish this, I might have to hunt you down and hurt you.”

Afghanistan, August

T
ortured moans woke Rabia, jerking
her straight up in bed. She should be prepared for them by now, yet she never was.

Heart pounding, she rushed out of the small room that was her sleeping place and into the room that by day was a gathering area and by night was a sleeping space for her father and now this American soldier. As she had done many nights since she’d brought him down from the cave, she knelt beside the pallet on the floor, where he thrashed in his sleep. She dipped a cloth in a bowl of water she’d left nearby, quickly wrung it out, then placed it over his forehead. The coolness sometimes soothed and settled him.

But nothing stopped the nightmares. They grew stronger and more frequent. They also held the answers, she suspected, to the past he could not remember.

She glanced over her shoulder to where her father still slept soundly. His old ears no longer heard as sharply. Tonight that was a good thing. Relieved that he had not awakened,
she sat quietly, alone with her thoughts, waiting for the worst to pass, conflicted over the unexpected things she felt for the man she had found by the side of the road more than a month ago.

In the beginning, she had been determined to be unaffected by his suffering. He represented a liability and an obligation, no more. She had resented having to care for him. Determination, however, was no match for human suffering. Time had passed, and she had weakened . . . and eventually grown to pity him.