Delilah's Weakness (16 page)

Delilah opened her mouth, licked her lips, cleared her throat, then shook her head, utterly speechless.

"The cable is underground," Luke said, sounding as if he were gritting his teeth. "It connects to your main fuse–box. You can turn it off from there if you choose not to use it."

She shook her head again. Impotent rage had boiled through her with a surge of adrenaline that left her weak, trembling, drained. "You did all this…this morning?" she whispered finally.

"When I was in town last night I ran into your friend Roy Underwood." he said. "I wrote out the order for the materials, and he dropped it off at the lumber yard for me this morning."

"Why, Luke?" She lifted her gaze to his face. The look in his eyes was one she’d never seen there before—narrow and intense, and filled with an anger as fierce as her own. "Why did you do this?"

"Why?" His anger ignited and took off like a rocket. "Why the hell do you always have to ask
why
? You put me out here in this damn barn with no heat and no lights. I wanted a place to plug in my electric blanket, okay?" He braced a hand against the block wall beside her head. To Delilah he seemed to loom over her, an erupting Vesuvius. His voice lowered, became tense and gravelly. "Dammit, Delilah, do I have to have permission from you to do something nice? I just wanted—I wanted to do something for you. I wanted to help you. I owe you something for—"

"You don’t owe me anything! I don’t want your help. I don’t need your help."

"The hell you don’t!"

"I don’t…want…help. I have to make it on my own. Can’t you get that through your thick head?"

They stared at each other, breathing hard, while their furious shouts echoed away into emptiness. Then Luke said softly, "I’ve got news for you. Nobody makes it alone, Boss. Nobody. ‘No man is an island.’"

Incensed, Delilah shot back recklessly, "Oh, bravo. But you know what they say, ‘Even the devil quotes scripture for his purposes.’"

Luke gave a bark of triumphant laughter. "That’s not scripture. Did you sleep through English Lit 1A? That’s John Donne."

"Oh, yeah? Well, here’s one for you: ‘I am a rock, I am—’"

"Simon and Garfunkel," he interrupted, then paused. "I think I understand," he said after a moment. "Isn’t the rest of it something about a rock never feeling any pain––" he touched her chin and gently lifted it, forcing her to look at him "––and an island never crying?"

He didn’t seem to move, yet somehow he was nearer, so close  she felt enveloped, suffocated. She said, "Let me go," in a voice she’d never used before, a husky voice, frightened, but with a strange, breathless element of excitement––or expectation. She wondered what had become of her anger, and his.

Except for the fingers beneath her chin, Luke wasn’t touching her, and yet his body seemed to be pressing her back against the cold concrete. When he spoke she could almost feel the vibrations, as if the words were a direct transmission of energy, bypassing primitive human auditory mechanisms.

"It won’t work, you know. Sometimes you have to feel pain. Sometimes you have to cry."

"Let…me…go."

"You’re not an island, Delilah Beaumont," he drawled softly, curving his lips in a sweet, lazy smile. "You know how I know? Because you definitely need someone. You need me."

"You!" It was a desperate sound, a whispered explosion.

"Me. I know you don’t want to believe that. So I’m going to have to prove it to you." His head moved, slowly descending.

"No." she choked out, and, jerking her chin from his grasp, lowered her head.

"Yes," he whispered, moving his hand down the side of her neck to rest lightly on her shoulder. With no more force than that he held her captive.

She closed her eyes and brought her hands up to his chest. It was a shock to feel his flesh beneath her palms, firm, warm, with a sensually intriguing texture of hair. It was a shock, too, to feel his heart hammering against her hand. It was so wild, its cadence so furious and untamed, it couldn’t have any connection with
him.
He was an iceman—so calm, so damnably controlled.

Slowly, unbearably slowly, his head descended. The tension grew, and became intolerable. Her heart was pounding as if it had a life of its own, and each breath felt like a sob, the dry, tearing sobs of nightmare.

And then his warm breath touched her cheek, her nose, her lips… and nothing more. His mouth hung there, waiting, no more than a sigh away from hers. If she drew breath, if she spoke or sighed or moistened her lips, they would touch his, and then…

What then?

The hand on her shoulder quivered. So faint a movement, but it relaxed her tension as simply as the clean release of the arrow relaxes the bow. Delilah made a small sound of frustration and need, and moved at last, parting her lips and raising her face to him in tentative surrender.

A chuckle, soft and intimate, stirred across her lips. His mouth, open and hungry, brushed hers so lightly, it tickled. She made a deep–throated, inarticulate protest.

He responded with a low murmur that could only be a question. Her fingers curled, unconsciously stroking, and her head moved, impatiently seeking. The sound that rumbled in his throat became a growl of masculine triumph.

She wanted him. Of course she did. Her body knew it, and made sure her mind did too. She was filling up with a deep, shimmering heat, a kind of trembling incandescence. And she knew he knew it, too, and still he denied her. When she lifted her chin, gently urging, and caressed his lips with hers, he laughed softly, warming her mouth with his breath, but resisted her invitation to increase the contact beyond that tantalizing feather’s touch.

She made another sound she’d never used before, a uniquely feminine growl of vexation. This time his answering chuckle was tender, not triumphant. His hand moved to cradle the back of her head and press her by slow, excruciating degrees into a deep and languid kiss. She sighed, the grateful sigh of a thirsty traveler taking a long, cool drink.

And then, without haste but without warning, he left her. He simply lifted his head and stepped back. Her hands, no longer supported by his chest, fell limp at her sides. She swayed, and his hand shot out to grasp her elbow. She opened her eyes then, and, blinded by the unexpected fluorescence, stood blinking, disoriented and confused, like someone waking up in a strange place.

"There," Luke said huskily. "Now try to tell me you don’t need me."

Delilah’s lips felt stiff and cold. "You bas—" she began, but he silenced her with a finger laid firmly across her mouth.

"Ah–ah, careful. That’s no way to talk to the man who’s going to be your lover."

She drew breath for vehement denial, but he shook his head and lifted his finger to touch his own lips. "Shh…" he whispered. "One day." He blew her a kiss, smiled his angel’s smile, and strolled down the barn’s center aisle and out into the orchard.

Delilah noticed with a shock that the shirt he’d plucked from the tree branch still hung from the hook of his finger, over his shoulder and down his back. He’d beaten her, utterly devastated and humiliated her, almost literally with one hand behind him.

** ** **

Luke strode through the orchard, vaulted the holding–pen fences without a thought, and kept going across the pasture until he reached the dubious haven of his wrecked plane. It was, he noticed, beginning to look a trifle forlorn and abandoned. He wondered how much longer he could get away with leaving it there like a broken toy discarded in the grass.

The chill breath of March swept across the pasture, but he didn’t put his shirt on. Not yet. Lord knew he needed cooling off—though he didn’t think even a blizzard could put out the fire in his loins.

He wasn’t proud of himself; he didn’t think he’d ever done a thing like that before. But then, he’d never known a woman like Delilah before. Had never met anyone, in fact, who had the power to make him lose his temper.

As he stood scowling at the listing airplane, the sun slipped behind the looming Sierra escarpment. At almost the same moment he heard Delilah’s front door slam. Suddenly cold, he shrugged into his shirt and began to do up the buttons. His movements felt jerky and uncoordinated.

He thought morosely about calling Pete. But the radio batteries were probably dead. He’d have to call from town.

He squinted up at the snow–covered peaks, then glanced at his watch. Sundown came early on the Sierra’s eastern slope. He probably had time for a quick run down the mountain. It was doubtful that Delilah would tolerate his help with the chores tonight anyway.

The truth was, he didn’t feel much like talking to Pete.

He didn’t want to think about court dates, or drilling moratoriums, or a bleeding–heart, bullheaded, reactionary judge named Andrew Beaumont.

He balled up his fist and brought it down hard on the metal skin of the plane’s canted wing. Then he slowly flexed his fingers and rotated his head, easing the tension out of his neck and shoulders. He’d call Pete tomorrow.

That night the lambing began in earnest.

T
he sheep run
was there, Delilah told herself. She had to use it. There was no other way of getting the sheep from the holding pen to the barn. She tied back the gate and herded the first of the most urgently expectant ewes through the opening.

At the far end of the run the barn’s open doorway was rhinestone–bright against the dusk. The sight of it made her feel like crying. She couldn’t rationalize away that swift surge of emotion that sent aches and tickles stinging through her nose and throat like a cloud of spring pollen.

What was the matter with her? Why, oh, why this awful confusion of feelings? She was acting like a child in a tantrum, a child who, at her most unlovable, most wants to be loved.

Is that what’s the matter with me? Do I just want to be loved?

But, I want
this.
My own place, my sheep. I’ve worked so hard, given up so much.

What had Mara Jane said this morning? That she should follow her feelings. But exactly what feelings? Luke made her feel like rockets and shooting stars and every other cliché she could think of. And sometimes he made her feel soft and yielding, as if all her bones had melted.

All right, she admitted silently.
Yes, I’m attracted to him!
But that wasn’t love. And he certainly didn’t love her. So when Mara Jane spoke of feelings, what did she mean? Did she mean this melting, shimmering desire? Or love—the forever kind?

And what happened, she wondered in silent confusion as she gave 907 and her twins a final check and turned out the light, if she didn’t want that kind of love, if she valued her independence too much?

On her way down to the house she met Luke, on his way up to the barn. He had a blanket rolled under his arm and a flashlight in his hand, and the sight of him was like a kick in the stomach.

"There’s a pot of stew on the stove," he told her, his voice dry and casual. "I thought if things got hectic during the next few days, you might want something easy to heat up. Salad’s in the fridge."

"Thanks," she acknowledged gruffly.

"Well," he said, switching on the flashlight, "see you in the morning."

"Yes. Good night," she mumbled, and went up the steps, brushing angrily at something cold and wet on her cheeks. I’m an island, she thought bitterly as the comforting aroma of simmering beef stew enveloped her.

How ironic it was that while sharing her living quarters with another human being for the first time in nearly three years, she felt lonelier than she ever had in her life.

She set her alarm for midnight. When it went off, she waited for the adrenaline shock to ebb, then pulled her clothes on over her thermals. Her muscles felt weak and shaky, her brain stiff and muddy. No matter how many times her alarm woke her, no matter how many times she had to rouse herself out of a deep sleep and warm bed to venture out alone into a cold, dark night, it never seemed to get any easier. It was only manageable if she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it.

The barn was warm and moist in spite of wide–open windows. It was full of the stirrings and rumblings of twenty placidly masticating sheep, and, like a counter–rhythm to the night symphony, the soft breathing sounds Luke made as he slept.

Delilah didn’t turn on the light. For the first few minutes she managed to keep herself from invading his privacy with the flashlight. After one cursory sweep over the flock and a brief check of 907 and her twins, though, her flashlight beam seemed drawn to that first stall on the left as if by a magnet.

It has to be love, she thought wryly, if he even looks beautiful when he’s sleeping.

The thought slipped into her conscious mind without warning, shaking her so badly, she nearly dropped the flashlight.

No! she shouted silently, and tried to look away from the man who lay as obliviously asleep in her hay as Little Boy Blue. She couldn’t, though. She tried to justify the avid way her gaze clung to his face by attempting to discern some flaw in him. Just one unappealing detail. She couldn’t do that, either.

He lay on his back, one arm thrown out wide, the other bent at the elbow to cradle his head. The blankets that covered him stopped just short of his armpits. Above them his arms and shoulders were bare. As she watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest, Delilah wondered what might happen if she were to lie down on the straw–cushioned blankets and stretch her body out alongside his, pillow her head on the hollow of his shoulder, turn her face to his chest, and taste the sweet–salt tang of his skin with her tongue––

Behind her there was a scuffling as a heavy–burdened ewe settled awkwardly onto the barn’s concrete floor. Delilah jerked the flashlight to the spot, guilt making her heart thump like a kettledrum. But the ewe’s legs were doubled comfortably under her and she was placidly chewing her cud, watching Delilah with an opaque and unblinking regard. Delilah sighed, cast the light once more across the rest of the flock, and turned to go.

"‘Lilah," Luke murmured, his voice sleep–groggy and husky, "what time is it?"

She gripped the door for support. "A little past midnight, I think. I don’t have a watch."