When Somebody Loves You (34 page)

Ten

Looking back, she felt like she’d lived an entire life span during those few days with Adam on Jug Island. Now, three months later, it all seemed a lifetime away. All but her memories. She held each one close, her heart twisting painfully as she recalled with crystal clarity the many times he’d made love to her.

He was gone. It was a fact she wrestled with daily.

She had more important things to worry about than missing him, though. She had bills to pay, the rest of the winter to get through. She wasn’t complaining. That she was still at Shady Point, and that the threat of losing the lodge to the Dreamscape Corporation had never materialized, remained a miracle to her. When the day of the auction had arrived, she’d gone prepared to watch her hopes slip away. But the threatened bid never came. She’d left the auction stunned, elated, and wishing Adam were there to share her joy.

But he wasn’t there. He never would be.

The day Steve had arrived at Jug, with a very lonesome Cooper practically mauling both her and Adam in greeting, Adam had packed his duffel and returned to Detroit.

Forcing herself to concentrate on her work, Jo picked up her pen and finished the edits on the new brochure she’d designed to advertise the lodge. She’d been working on the layout since one o’clock that afternoon. It was due at the printer’s after Christmas.

Christmas. She looked longingly across the room to the little tree she’d set up in the corner. Christmas was only a week away. Shoving aside the empty feeling that accompanied the thought of spending another holiday alone, she reviewed her edits.

Satisfied the brochure was to her liking, she rubbed at the stiffness in her neck and flicked on the lamp. It would be dark soon.

Rising slowly from the desk, she plugged in the tree lights, then walked to the frost-laced window that overlooked the lake. Mother Nature had perfected winter in northern Minnesota. Two feet of ice covered Kabetogama. Another twelve inches of pristine white snow topped the frozen lake like a thick layer of stiff frosting. Only the snowmobile tracks tracing across the shoreline marred the wind-sculpted skiffs. The beauty was both breathtaking and isolating.

She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the cold glass and thought of spring. When the thaw began in early May, the lake would moan and cry as the cracking ice broke up and departed. The mournful sounds would echo hauntingly through the Northland, crying for winter’s return much as she had cried alone at night for the return of her lover.

He wouldn’t come back, but oh, how she missed him. As never before, she understood her father’s pain.

She understood, too, Adam’s need for a quick departure. The break had been clean and final. The pain cut decisively deep.

A thunderous pounding on her door and Cooper bolting up from his rug in front of the fire with a startled “Woof!” jolted her out of her reflections. Swiping a telling tear from her eye, she quieted the dog and hurried across the room to the door, wondering who would be out and about near dusk in this cold.

“Steve!”

“Criminently it’s cold out there,” he announced unnecessarily as a zephyr of arctic wind zipped inside before he could slam the door shut behind him. Stomping the snow from his boots, he tugged off his gloves, then flipped back his fur-lined hood and unzipped his parka. His cheeks were mottled with red, his black hair matted and mussed as he shrugged out of his winter gear.

“Got a hot cup of coffee for a cold, thirsty man?” he asked with a shiver. He combed his hair with stiff fingers and walked over to the fireplace.

“What are you doing out on a day like this?” she asked. “They just announced on the radio that the windchill factor is sixty below and dropping.”

He blew on his fingers to warm them, then scratched Cooper behind the ears. “It’s good to see you too.” His smile was saccharine sweet.

She brought him his coffee and a weak apology. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I worry about you out in the cold.”

“Maybe I worry about you too,” he countered gently. “You shouldn’t be alone here. Especially now.”

She turned her back on him and walked over to the window again. “I’m fine.”

“Sure you are . . . and I’m the abominable snowman. Talk to me. Convince me I shouldn’t worry.”

“What could possibly be wrong?” She whirled on him, suddenly angry at him for knowing her too well, angrier at herself for confiding in him one long, lonely night a month ago.

Uncharacteristic tears crowded against her lashes. Steve looked away, uncomfortable with her pain, and settled himself on her overstuffed sofa. He stared at the coffee cup dangling between his widespread knees and sighed deeply. “The offer still stands, Jo.”

She responded only with silence.

“I know you still love him,” he added. “But I know you care about me too. There’s enough, Jo. We’ve got more going for us than a lot of people begin or end a marriage with. We’re friends. We could pull it off.”

“Is that what you want for yourself? A buddy?” She shook her head and smiled sadly. They’d been through so much together. The summer Steve was twelve and he’d broken his leg, Jo had been driving the boat when he’d tried a dry landing on water skis, miscalculated, and hit the dock. She’d been the first to sign his cast. And when she’d lost her mother, Steve had been the one to brave her grief. The special bond that often breaks during the passage from the simplicities of childhood to the complexities of adulthood had remained intact between them.

And right now, as he sat there and offered to take care of her, she’d never loved him more. “I wouldn’t do that to you. You’re right. You are a good friend. And you deserve much more than what I’ve got to offer.” When he searched her face too intensely, she squared her shoulders and smiled. “I’ll be all right.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“I can handle it.”

“You’ll at least let me help?”

She walked over to the sofa, sat down beside him, and let him pull her into his arms. “I’ll hold you to it.”

He squeezed her hard. “Well.” His voice sounded suspiciously gravelly as he let her go. “I’d best be on my way before it gets any darker. Have you got enough wood?”

She nodded.

“Phone working?”

“Yes, Mother. And I’ve got the Sat phone if the lines go down. Don’t worry. If I need you, I’ll call.”

He bundled up in silence, watching her all the while. “Jo . . . are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Hey.” She rallied for his benefit. “It’s me, Ms. Independence, remember?”

He tugged her into his arms for a farewell hug. “Yeah, I remember. Take care, brat.”

She grinned. “I love you too.” Closing the door behind him, she listened until she could no longer hear the roar of his snowmobile.

The long shadows of dusk had darkened the house by the time she walked to the kitchen. She stared out the window and watched the sunset paint the snowy white lake a soft muted blue while she waited for her soup to heat. She wasn’t hungry, but she ate anyway. She no longer had just herself to think about. She had the baby to consider.

Night brought the best and the worst times for Jo. She missed Adam most in the darkness. Because she missed him, she would let herself remember. And when she remembered, it made it all seem real and brought him back for a precious little while.

Each night as she lay alone beneath her cool, coarse sheets, she would press her hands to her belly and think of Adam’s baby growing there. And she’d smile. Would it please him, this life they’d created with their love? Would it thrill him as it had her? She would never know, and neither would Adam. She would not have him coming back to her out of duty. She would not be another burden for him to bear.

She pulled the covers to her chin and stared into the cold, dark bedroom, recalling the day they’d discovered they could both fit into the old copper bathtub. They’d subsequently explored the sensual properties of warm water on cool skin, and laughingly created whitecaps and sloshed soapy water all over the floor. Later that night they’d pored over the guest register they’d found in a cupboard drawer, smiling as the Larsons must have smiled at the messages travelers had left behind over the years. With a sense that they were preserving what they’d shared together, they scrawled their own message on the brittle, yellowed paper, then closed the book and made sweet, poignant love.

With her memories to warm her, Jo drifted into a fitful sleep. She was teetering on the edge of consciousness when Cooper’s low warning growl set her on edge. Her eyes slammed open. Her heart boomeranged inside her ribs. Without questioning why she was certain, she knew someone was in the house.

She lay very still. Listening for another sound, she tried to remember if she’d locked the door after Steve had left.

Willing herself to be calm and her bedsprings not to creak, she turned back the covers and rolled soundlessly to the floor. She groped under the bed, her fingers closing around the heavy steel of the long-barreled shotgun she kept loaded there. Rising shakily, she tiptoed on bare feet to her open bedroom door. Her fingers trembled as she tugged her flannel nightgown tighter against her throat and braved a hesitant step into the living room.

A tall, shadowy figure emerged out of the darkness just as she cleared the doorway.

She stifled a scream and raised the gun to her shoulder, taking a bead on what she hoped was his heart.

“You’re as good as dead if you move,” she warned him with wavering conviction. “Don’t doubt it for an instant.”

Every ounce of her blood careened through her body and pooled in her head. She was dizzy with fear as he stood stock-still, looming like a mountain in the darkness.

“You been watching those old gangster movies again?” The familiar husky voice filled the dead silence.

Fighting disbelief and hope and an uncontrollable weakness in her knees, she stumbled to the wall and flicked on the light, then stared in heart-lurching shock at the glorious sight of Adam Dursky’s cold-reddened nose and frosty gray eyes staring back at her from within the hood of his parka.

He flipped the hood back. “Hello, Red.”

His voice was as warm as the night was cold. His gaze swept hungrily across her face before veering to the shotgun.

“One way or the other,” he finally said, “I wish you’d put me out of my misery. Shoot me or kiss me, or send me back out in the cold, but do something.” His weak attempt at humor was laced with quiet desperation.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did both as she lowered the gun and launched herself into his open arms. “Adam!”

He buried his face in her hair and held her hard against him. But it wasn’t enough. Prying her arms from around his neck, he unzipped his heavy jacket and drew her inside against his warmth. Knotting his hands in her hair, he dragged her head back so he could look into her eyes. “Lord, I’ve missed you.”

“Don’t talk,” she whispered urgently. Covering his face with her hands, she pulled his mouth down to hers. “Don’t talk, just hold me.”

To her utter horror, she began to cry, small, breathless sobs at first, but they escalated to hard, wracking shudders that stole her strength and her control. “I’ve . . . m-missed you . . . missed you,” she managed between gulps.

“I know, baby. I know.” He held her like he’d never let her go. He rocked her until her trembling stopped, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa before the fire.

Shrugging out of his parka, he settled her onto his lap and brushed her hair from her tearstained cheeks.

“Better?” he asked, tucking her nightgown around her bare toes, then warming them with his hand.

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.” She laughed sharply. “I don’t know where
you
came from. How did you get here?”

He eased deeper into the sofa. For the first time, she noticed the lines of fatigue on his face. Exhausted as he was, she’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

“I came the first eight hundred miles by bus and the last thirty by the seat of my pants. I hired someone with a pickup when I got to International Falls. We four-wheeled it as far as the lake road, then snowmobiled the rest of the way in.”

She had spent three months missing him. The reality of his presence in her living room was suddenly too much to accept at face value. “Why are you here?”

Adam filled his senses with her nearness. Several long moments passed before he cupped her face in his hands. “I’m here,” he said, “because for too many nights I’ve had to be content only dreaming about green eyes the color of springtime when you’re happy, fiery emeralds when you’re not.” His gaze drifted lovingly across her face. “Because for too long, I could only try to remember the feel of skin too soft to be real.” He brushed his thumbs across her proud yet delicate cheekbones. Then he tunneled his long fingers through her hair as though he couldn’t wait any longer to touch it. “I’m here because I couldn’t go another day without filling my hands with spun gold.”

She circled his wrists with her hands and pressed them against her cheeks. “I didn’t know you were a poet,” she said shakily, her eyes filled with wonder.

He smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t either. But then I didn’t know I was a lot of things until I found you . . . or until I lost you.” He looked deep into her eyes. “Just so you’ll know it’s really me, let me put it this way.” He paused and let a slow, sexy grin steal the last hint of chill from her heart and fill it with love. “I’m here because I’d gotten used to taking orders from a short, brassy redhead, because I miss your nasty little mouth, because of the way you looked in just my shirt . . .” His voice dropped to a low, husky rumble. “Because of the way you looked in just my socks.”