Magnolia Dawn (12 page)

Rush wrapped his arms around her, drawing her tightly against him. “Oh, baby, it's over now. That boy can't hurt you anymore. And if anyone else tries, I'll kill them. I promise I will.”

He held her as she sobbed, stroking her hair and back, murmuring sounds of comfort. After a while her tears eased and she lay quietly against his side.

“What happened to him, Anna?” he asked, moving his fingers in slow circles at the small of her back. “Was he arrested?”

She shook her head. “No. I didn't even tell anyone for a couple of weeks. I was so…ashamed. I thought I'd done something…wrong. I thought that somehow I'd…invited his—”

“His violence?” Rush said, his voice tight.

“Yes.” Anna drew in a deep breath, careful not to meet his eyes, afraid suddenly of what she might see in them. “Anyway, Macy came upon me in the gazebo one afternoon a couple of weeks later and I
was…crying. She asked me what was wrong. And I told her.”

“Oh, baby.” Rush pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Poor baby.”

“I begged her not to tell Mama or Daddy, but she insisted. Mama was…shocked. Dismayed. They decided it would be best if they said nothing. They were worried about my reputation.”

“Your reputation!” Rush exploded. “What about punishing that bastard for what he did to you?”

Anna flattened her hands on Rush's chest. She felt his anger, in the wild thud of his heart, in his taut muscles. She heard the outrage in his voice.

He didn't blame her. He wasn't repulsed, wasn't so discomfited that he couldn't face her.

Tears welled in her eyes again, and she squeezed them shut. “So much time had passed and…it was his word against mine. They were afraid—”

“Nobody would believe you.”

“Yes. And then everybody would know I was…spoiled.” Again Rush swore, and this time it was Anna who stroked and soothed. “We never told Daddy. They were afraid of his reaction, afraid that when he was in one of his moods, something terrible would happen. But Macy told her husband Brady.”

Anna shifted her gaze away from Rush's. “A couple weeks after she did, Lee got beat up. Real bad. He was almost killed. Rumor was a gang of militant blacks from over in Bolivar County did it. Which made sense because Lee was a racist. He was always saying and doing terrible things to blacks. Inquiries were made, but nothing ever came of it.”

“You think Macy's husband arranged it?”

“I know he did. And maybe you'll think I'm an awful person, but I felt so good after. I felt like I…mattered to somebody. I felt like somebody cared about what had happened to me.”

“I care,” Rush whispered. “I wish I could do… something to make it better for you.”

“You already have,” she said simply. “You listened. You didn't judge.”

He tipped her face up to his. “You're a special woman, Annabelle Ames. And I'm going to kiss you. Now.” He caught her mouth, softly at first, then pressing, delving deeper. He tasted the salt of her tears, the sweetness of her response. Parting her lips, he found her tongue, toying with it at first, then stroking deeply.

Her story had angered him in an almost primal way. He'd had to fight the urge to find this boy and punish him himself. It had taken a shocking amount of control to continue to quietly listen and reassure her. But he had, because that's what Anna had needed.

Now she needed to be loved. Now she needed to know how wonderful it could be between a man and a woman. She needed to know passion.

He would show her.

If he could hold himself back long enough. He wanted her with a ferocity that stunned him, a ferocity he couldn't remember experiencing before, though he must have. For if he hadn't, this woman would be truly special, this experience extraordinary. And he couldn't have that. He couldn't have become that involved with her.

He would try to remember later, to reassure himself, but for now there was only Anna—her soft, thick hair and even softer mouth, the way she moved and whimpered under his touch, her pain and her passion.

He pressed her back into the mattress and tangled his fingers in her hair. “Look at me, Anna.” She opened her eyes; they were heavy-lidded and dark with awareness. “You're so beautiful,” he murmured. “So exciting.”

She smiled tremulously, and his heart wrenched. “You don't have to say that to me. It doesn't—”

“I don't say things I don't mean.” Rush moved his fingers over her high cheekbones, down the line of her fine, straight nose, along the contour of her soft, full mouth. “You are beautiful, Anna. And passionate.” He smiled. “Get ready, babe, because now I'm going to show you just how passionate.”

He caught her to him, finding her mouth, her tongue. He moved his hands over her body, igniting fires with his fingers, arousing her
to a fever pitch. One moment he moved with excruciating slowness, the next he rushed, plunging her headlong into a maelstrom of response.

She forgot her fear, lost track of all the times and ways she had failed in the past. Sensation took the place of fear. And with it, need. Sweet and biting, all-consuming.

Anna pulled him to her, onto her, trembling now with urgency—to feel his flesh pressed against hers. She roamed her hands over him, exploring, learning. Reveling in the hard, angular feel of him against her palms.

She felt his passion—and his control—in the quivering of his muscles. Under her hands his skin grew damp and hot. She grew bolder at this evidence of her effect on him, and let her mouth explore the places her hands already had.

How could she fear freezing again when her body was consumed by heat? she wondered. Places she hadn't even known existed pulsed with awareness, throbbed with a primal, instinctual rhythm.

Rush dragged her mouth back up to his. Anna drew in a ragged, sobbing breath. She wanted something, needed something that was just beyond her reach. It built inside her, and she moved her hips against his, whimpering his name.

Rush murmured something low and urgent. He found her with his fingers, and buried himself inside her. She arched and cried out, clutching at the bedding.

“That's right, sweetheart,” he whispered, stroking. “Let go and enjoy.” His fingers continued their rhythmic magic, even as he caught the tip of one breast in his mouth.

Anna cried out his name, bucking against his hand, reaching up for a blinding star and catching it. The star exploded in her head, and she fell back against the bed, sobbing.

Rush was there, holding her, stroking her face and hair. “There, baby. Go ahead and cry. Let it out.”

She clutched at him, feeling strange and miraculous and new. And free. Free for the first time since she was fifteen years old.

And at almost forty, she was finally a woman.

Anna tilted her face to his, searching his expression. She wanted to tell him what he'd done for her, what this meant to her, but as she started to form the words, she realized how they would sound. Smitten. Adoring. Lovestruck, even.

And Rush was a man who would run from such flowery emotion. She didn't know how she knew, but she did.

“You're tired, sweet.” Rush smiled softly and pushed the dampened tendrils of hair away from her face. “Go ahead and get some rest.”

“But…” She looked up at him, feeling herself flushing wildly. “But you didn't…you know.”

He smiled again and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “It doesn't matter.”

“But you… That's not…fair.” She sounded like a high-school girl, and blushed again. “I do know how these things work.”

Rush laughed and hugged her. “I'll survive, Anna. I promise.”

“I know. But I…want to make you as happy as you made me.”

His smile faded and he gazed at her, a strange expression on his face. One that made her sad. “Rush, I didn't mean to—”

He touched his forefinger to her mouth, silencing her. “I had pleasure. Don't you know how exciting it was to watch you?” He ran the flat of his hand over her damp abdomen. “How exciting to know I was your first?”

At her look he smiled. “I
was
your first. Nobody else counted, because nobody else has ever made you…sing. Besides,” he finished wickedly, “we have the whole summer.”

But she didn't want to leave it this way, Anna thought. She wanted to make him as happy as he'd made her, give him as much pleasure. And by doing so she could tell him without words what being with him had meant to her—what he meant to her.

“No,” she whispered, her voice a throaty imitation of her own. “You're not getting out of this so easily.”

With a boldness she'd been incapable of only minutes ago, she found him. He made a sound of pleasure and swelled under her fingers. She flushed, feeling powerful and womanly.

“Anna, do you know what—”

“Yes…I do.” She moved her hand again, slowly, rhythmically. “I want to do this, Rush. I want to make love with you. Please…guide me.”

He had neither the will nor the want to deny her, and drew her into his arms. They began again, kissing, stroking, exploring. Only this time Anna knew what waited at the end. This time she had no fear.
Only arousal. Only anticipation.

When the time came, Rush slipped into her slowly, taking care not to hurt her, not to frighten her. She stiffened but for only a moment, then a shudder moved over her and she wrapped her legs around his.

Rush told himself to hold back; he tried to remember how she'd been frightened, how she'd been hurt. But the feel of her wrapped around him made careful and cautious an impossibility. With a muttered cry, Rush caught her mouth.

They rocked together, slowly at first, building to a crescendo. Anna dug her fingers into his shoulders; his mouth caught her cry of pleasure.

As hers caught his.

For a long time after they lay twined together, the sheets a damp tangle around them. Moonlight and the warm night air tumbled through the window, bringing with it the faint scent of the magnolias.

Anna sighed and snuggled against him, her heart full to bursting. She'd never imagined being with a man could be like this, even in her wildest fantasies. And she'd never felt so special, so cherished.

Her cheeks heated. She couldn't start thinking this was more than it was, she warned herself. Rush was a drifter. He was leaving after the summer.

He had promised her nothing.

“Happy?” he asked quietly.

That he should ask that question now was painfully ironic. She lifted her face to his and smiled anyway. Tomorrow could take care of itself. “Yes. Deliriously so.”

“Deliriously?” he teased. “I
am
good.”

“Conceited,” she countered, tracing lazy figure eights on his stomach. “And terribly arrogant.”

“Is that so?”

“I should have fired you when I had the chance.”

He yawned. “Yeah, but then you wouldn't have had the opportunity to mess around with the hired help.”

“Good point.” She moved her fingers to his chest. “Rush?”

“Hmm?”

“Do we have to go to sleep?”

He arched an eyebrow. “You have a better suggestion?”

She did. Inching up, she whispered it in his ear. “What do you think?”

He pulled her to him. “I think you might kill me before the end of the summer.” He lowered his mouth until it hovered a fraction above hers and grinned wickedly. “But what the hell? A guy has to go sometime.”

Chapter Eight

R
ush sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding, skin slick with sweat. Moonlight spilled through the windows, helping to dispel the shadows of his dreams. He rubbed his hands over his face, shocked to see that they shook.

The shadows hadn't visited him since he'd come to Ashland. Until tonight. Until after he'd made love with Annabelle.

He swore softly and gazed down at her. She slept peacefully, her breathing deep and undisturbed. What did it mean that the shadows had visited him tonight? Nothing? Probably. But nonetheless his psyche's timing sucked. Big time.

Rush dragged his hands through his hair, still feeling the effects of the dream; feeling the frustration, the sense of emptiness and loss. The dream never varied. In it he was searching, reaching out to shadowy images always just beyond his grasp.

He didn't need a shrink to explain what his subconscious was telling him tonight—he needed to remember the reason why he'd come to Ashland.

He checked the bedside clock, only two hours till dawn.

And only two hours since he'd last made love with Anna.

Rush lowered his gaze to her face, unbearably soft in sleep. With his forefinger, he touched the curve of her cheek. Her skin was flushed, warm against his fingertip. He could make love to her again, he realized. This very moment. Just looking at her stirred him.

What an experience making love with her had been. Exciting and erotic. Passionate and totally fulfilling. And tender. In a way lovemaking never had been for him before.

Rush drew his hand away from her cheek, discomfited by the realization. He shouldn't have given in to his attraction to her; they shouldn't have made love. She would want something from him that he couldn't give.

Rush slipped quietly out of bed. Not bothering to dress, he went out to the front porch and the warm, black night.

Leaning against one of the rough-hewn columns, he stared up at the inky sky. What the hell was he doing here? Certainly not what he'd come to do. He made a sound of self-disgust. After the first round of inquiries, he'd made no progress at all. He hadn't even been into town in a week.

He'd been too busy becoming involved with Annabelle.

Dammit. He rubbed his hand along his stubbled jaw. He'd created an impossible situation. Already, he knew, she hoped he would stay. Already, she cared too much for him.

Anna put down roots. It was her way. He'd known that about her from the beginning.

He'd never had roots. He never would. That was his way. Only he doubted she understood him as well as he did her.

He would hurt her.

Even as he'd drawn her onto the bed with him he had understood the ramifications of his actions. Yet he'd been unable to stop himself. She'd called to him so deeply and so strongly, he'd been unable to leave her alone…or deny himself.

Rush turned his gaze to Ashland. It rose, monument-like, out of the darkness. A symbol of history and constancy. A symbol of both the ephemeral quality of life and of permanence.

A symbol of everything he would never be.

He wasn't posing as a drifter, Rush realized. He was one. He'd dropped everything in his life to come here. Without one hitch. No family. No friends. No romantic ties. Even his business functioned without him.

He'd long ago cut himself off from the world of people and emotions. Yet something about Ashland—about Anna—made him think about the things he'd given up. Made him long for them.

Rush fisted his fingers. He refused to long for anything, refused to feel the great gaping place inside him—the place that yearned for something always just beyond his grasp. He'd closed himself to it long ago. He'd learned that he functioned best without people. Without messy emotional ties or commitments.

Rush frowned. He shouldn't have started this affair with Anna.

He had to end it.

“What's wrong?”

He turned. Anna stood in the doorway, clutching a blanket to her chest. Her eyes were soft with sleep, her expression heartbreakingly vulnerable.

His own heart tipped over. She needed him. In a way he'd never been needed before. In a way that scared him senseless.

Even as he told himself to make a clean break now, he smiled reassuringly. “Nothing's wrong. I'm a light sleeper. That's all.”

She didn't believe him; he could tell by the wounded look in her eyes. And by the way she hesitated in the doorway, like a frightened bird preparing for flight.

“I don't regret our having made love,” he said softly, realizing as he uttered the words that despite everything, he spoke the truth. He didn't regret; maybe tomorrow or the next day he would, but not now. “If that's what you're thinking, stop it right now.”

“I know that I was…” She inched her chin up, just a fraction, as if preparing herself for a blow. “It was probably…disappointing for you.”

“Hardly.” Rush crossed to where she stood and cupped her face in his palms. “Annabelle, my sweet, it doesn't get any better than that.”

Her lips curved into a shy but brilliant smile. At its sweetness, a lump formed in his throat. Messy, he thought. He was in so far and so deep already, he might never be able to dig himself out.

And at this moment he had neither the fortitude nor strength of will to even try.

“Really?” she asked.

“Really.” He pressed his mouth to hers. “Unless, of course, I was the one who disappointed?”

She blushed crimson and shook her head. “No way.”

Charmed, Rush laughed softly and drew her with him to the edge of the porch. There, he unwound her blanket and slipped inside, folding it around them both. Anna sighed and snuggled into his side.

It was warm under the blanket. Her curves molded to his planes, her flesh to his, and awareness rippled through him. How was it possible that he wanted her again—so soon and so strongly? What was it about this woman that turned him inside out and upside down?

He ran the flat of his hand over her hip, pleased when she didn't stiffen or flinch. She'd grown accustomed to his touch already. She trusted him.

Uncomfortable, Rush drew her closer to his side and for long moments, they stared out at Ashland.

“It's such a beautiful night,” she whispered.

“But it's almost morning.”

“Yes.” She sighed again and tilted her face up to his. “I don't remember the last time I've seen so many stars.”

“The sky's never like this in Boston. Too many lights, too much pollution.”

As they gazed up at the heavens, a star shot across it. Anna caught her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, her cheeks were bright with color. “Macy says that stars are really angels, and when you see a shooting star it's an angel rushing to see God. That's why if you make a wish on a shooting star, it always comes true.”

Rush turned her to him. “Always?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“And what did you wish for, Annabelle Ames?”

The color in her cheeks deepened, and she shook her head. “Macy says if you tell, it won't come true.”

“And Macy's word is gospel?”

“Definitely. In many ways she was more a mother to me than my own mother was.”

Rush drew his eyebrows together. “Wasn't Macy the woman I met the other day?”

“Mmm-hmm. She was the housekeeper at Ashland the whole time I was growing up. And self-imposed nanny.” Anna smoothed her hand over Rush's chest and flat belly. “She and her husband lived here, in this cottage.”

The overseer and his wife were black, Rush realized with a shock. He'd never even considered that. He sucked in a sharp breath, disappointment spearing through him. He couldn't be their son, or any other blood relation of theirs.

Yet nothing else in Ames stirred his memory. Nothing but Ashland and this overseer's house. He'd been so certain—in his gut—that the overseer and his wife were the keys to his past.

Another theory shot to hell.

“Rush?” Anna tipped her face up to his. “What happened to your family?”

He looked at her in surprise. It was as if she'd read his thoughts. “Why do you ask?”

“You said you were an orphan. I just wondered…what happened to your parents and the rest of your family.”

“Actually, I don't know what happened.” He frowned, shifting his gaze to the horizon. “I was delivered to an orphanage at age five. I don't know by whom. I might have family somewhere.”

“Would you like to find them?”

Rush looked at her, his expression hard. “I'd like to know who I am. There's a difference.”

Anna lifted a hand to his cheek and stroked it gently. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. I—”

“Don't worry about it,” he said harshly. “I don't.”

But he did.
She saw it in the haunted look in his eyes, in the hard line of his jaw. She caught his hand and brought it to her mouth.

She hated to see him this way, hated that she'd ruined the mood with her careless question.

She turned so she completely faced him and folded her arms around his waist. She kissed his shoulders, his chest, trailing her tongue and mouth across his flesh, delighting in the sounds of pleasure he made, in the way he grew absolutely still as if absorbing her touch.

She wanted to comfort him as he'd comforted her earlier. She wanted to let him know, in a way that he would accept, that she cared for him; that she thought he was special and
wonderful.

She caught his right nipple, nipping it, drawing it into a tight pebble with her tongue. She moved to his left one, pleasuring it, and him, again.

She dropped to her knees. The blanket slipped to the floor. She dipped her tongue into the indentation of his belly button, then moved lower still.

With a groan, Rush followed her down, tumbling her back against the blanket. He caught her mouth and plunged into her just as the sun peeked over the horizon, shooting colored light across the sky.

Hours later, Anna gazed at Rush. The night before had the quality of a bizarre, erotic dream. They'd made love so many times, with the last being almost unreal in its perfection.

And yet, through it all she'd been unable to stop thinking of what he'd said about his past; had been unable to forget the tone of his voice, the expression in his eyes.

“I was delivered to an orphanage at age five….”

“I'd like to know who I am, Anna. There's a difference.”

Those words had stayed with her the rest of the night, intruding on her sleep, invading her dreams. Why did she have the feeling that his wanting to know who he was had something to do with her? How could it?

Because his feelings for himself had everything to do with his feelings for her.

She frowned. She wished that weren't true. She wished she didn't feel it to be true deep down in her gut.

There had been something ferocious about the way Rush had loved her that last time. There'd been a desperation in the way he had touched her. It had frightened her. Not as she used to be frightened—of being hurt or freezing—but in a way that cut closer to her heart.

It was almost as if he'd already said goodbye.

Nonsense. She shook her head. They had the whole summer ahead of them. He'd said so. She was an innocent in the ways of lovemaking, that was all. She didn't understand passion's various forms or subtleties.

Not yet, anyway. She would soon.

Propping herself on an elbow, she gazed down at him. She smiled, thinking of the days and nights ahead. It seemed an endless collection of hours to…learn; to make love.

Her cheeks burned. How much she'd changed in the space of eight hours! How much Rush had changed her!

Her smile faded. But it wasn't an endless amount of time. In the space of her life, it was so fleeting as to be almost nonexistent.

How many days? she wondered, counting in her head. June was already drawing to a close. The end of August she started back to school. Two months. Only two months.

And then he would be gone.

She'd fallen in love with him.

Her heart leapt to her throat. No, she couldn't have. Forty-year-old Southern spinsters didn't fall in love with handsome Yankee drifters.

She clutched at the bedding, a feeling akin to panic coursing through her. She knew so little about him, so little about his life. He had secrets.

She wasn't reckless, she wasn't foolhardy.

But she was in love with him.

Anna moved her gaze over his face, boyish in sleep. What more did she need to know about him? He was kind and patient. Honest and gentle. The kind of man who could take a frightened and frigid woman and make her…sing.

He was the man she'd always dreamed of.

Wonder filled her. It felt good to love. To trust. To know she could put her body in the hands of this man without fear. He wouldn't judge. He would never deride her, never laugh. Never hurt her.

She'd never felt this way before.

Smiling softly, she reached out and gently touched his mouth. He stirred sleepily and twitched his nose. Biting back a girlish and delighted giggle, she plucked a feather from one of the pillows and trailed it across his eyelids, around the shell of his ear, down his nose.

His nose twitched again, and this time she didn't catch the giggle in time. But still, he didn't awaken.

She grew bolder. She leaned closer. His hand shot out and caught hers. “I wouldn't,” he muttered, not opening his eyes.

“No?” She tickled the corner of his mouth with the bit of down. “And why no—”

Before she could finish the question, he'd tumbled her against his chest, then flipped her onto her back. He lay across her, pinning her to the mattress. At her sputter of surprise, he laughed. “That's why.”

His eyes were clear, unshadowed by sleep. She narrowed her own eyes. “How long have you been awake?”

He laughed. “I'll never tell.”

She slipped her arms around his neck and laced her fingers together. “Pretending to be asleep is in very poor taste.”