Man From Tennessee (7 page)

“And you have grown up, Tish.”

His tone was soft, and she shook her head when he started toward her. She knew why he was coming, what he wanted, but the mesmerizing hold in his eyes was difficult to look away from. Her hands trembled just from the brush of those eyes on her soft skin.

“I’m not asking or even suggesting fresh starts, Tish. I don’t even know who you are anymore, but I know damn well there’s something that you’re not leaving here again without… You can feel it…I can feel it every time I come near you.”

“No. There’s nothing, Kern, there’s…” She put her hands in front of her as if that would be enough to push him away. A shudder whispered through her from fingers to toes as his lips molded hers, gently, insistently persuasive. His fingers caressed her face and throat, like they had done the first time when she had fallen in love with him. His tongue flicked across her teeth and her lips parted for him, her eyes closed half in dread, half in anticipation. The leashed lovemaking was Kern’s sweetness, but unleashed there were old nightmares…

“Put your arms around my neck, Tish,” he whispered. “You did it last night.”

“No. Please, Kern. This is all wrong…”

“Just for a moment,” he coaxed. He drew her slim hands up himself, placing them around his neck, and his lips softly brushed her eyes closed again, brushed a sweet seductive warmth down the side of her face and neck. Her fingers crumpled in the rough thick texture of his hair. The need to hold on was there. She felt his strength beneath her fingertips, his flesh so warm, so responsive to her lightest touch. The earthy male scent of him enfolded her like a sweet drug she could not escape from, suddenly uncertain if she even wanted to. The panic that should have been mounting didn’t. She felt her breasts stiffen against his heartbeat, felt her thighs yield to the pressure of his own. So fierce was the growing awareness that she suddenly felt desperate for air but he would give her none. Her throat arched back as his mouth pressed on hers, a pressure that ached bruisingly against her lips, a pressure that echoed in the tightening spasms at the pit of her stomach.

She knew better. Kern had not spoken of a renewal of their marriage and there was no way she would ever surrender again to that old feeling of being on trial, risk that sense of inadequacy as a woman that had almost destroyed her. But for a sweet shivering moment that seemed exactly the point. It was over with Kern, so there was really nothing left to lose.

She molded her body to Kern’s, pressing her soft thighs to his sinewy hardness, as her tongue parried with his. Her hands kneaded the nape of his neck, his shoulders, the long, endlessly long stretch of his back to his waist. Kern matched fire with fire, his lips leaving hers only for breath before his teeth grazed her neck as if he were hungry for her taste. His bandaged wrist chafed the tender skin of her ribs under her blouse, summoning other fires. A work-roughened palm was impatient with the slip of bra, until it found the silky pale orb of flesh beneath, until the nipple tightened and swelled and strained beneath it.

Something burst inside Trisha, a Pandora’s box of desire and need suddenly freed. She could not touch him enough. Her hands roamed feverishly beneath his shirt, up and down his sides and back, instinctively careful of the scar.

“Lord, I want you, Tish. I’ve always wanted you,” he murmured huskily.

She felt like crying. The wildness inside her would not stop building. She wanted to possess him and to be taken as she had never wanted to be taken before, not caring for past, present, future, not caring about the night or the rocky terrain or the dampness.

It was all so easy. Kern was urging her down, his hands and eyes compelling her to lie beneath him. But his eyes left hers for just that moment, closing when he tried to bend where his ribs would not yet allow him to bend, his right wrist taking weight it was not yet ready to take. In the moonlight she saw his face contort in sudden unwilling pain, and she froze.

The next thing she knew she was running. Stumbling on the rock-rough ground, tears blinding her, she made her hands try to put together blouse and bra and hair. Her chest was heaving in the chill night air. Shame, pride, memories…the internal ache was as sharp as a knife edge in her side when she finally reached the car and stopped, leaning weakly on the hood. She felt like fragments inside. From wanton to cold made no sense. Not to respond when he had loved her, to go on fire when there was only chemistry and no future. To completely forget that the man was hurt and in no shape for violent lovemaking, to forget every ounce of self-respect that had put her back together in those long years…

“Get in,” Kern ordered.

His shirt was flapping open. His eyes like icy coals as he opened the car door, he snatched at her arm and all but shoved her across to the passenger seat. The door slammed like a reverberating echo in her ear and Trisha huddled in the seat, eyes suddenly dry. His tall figure crossing in front of the car reflected a cold hard fury that frightened her. When he got inside he just looked at her tousled features long and hard and then started the engine.

They were at his place in minutes. The single light left on in the kitchen made a lonely circle of welcome on the grass outside. Trisha reached quickly for the door handle, but Kern’s arm shot across, pinning her.

“Tell me you intended to leave, just when—” he said harshly.

She shook her head mutely, and his grip imperceptively lightened.

“I told you I wondered what would happen when you grew up, Tish. Now I wonder how many men were part of that transition. You never took fire like that before. How many?” He grated. “How many men have you slept with in the past five years?”

She was frightened still, his eyes intense, smoldering anger inches from hers. She knew he wouldn’t believe the truth. It struck her as almost hysterically funny to think of telling him after what just happened that she had almost led a nun’s life, that she had accepted finally that she was simply emotionless in bed. She didn’t understand yet why she had responded to him after all these years. And, if it weren’t for the mortifying confusion and embarrassment she felt inside, the bitter scald of tears held barely in check, she would not believe she had indeed responded.

“Never mind.” His jaw was taut, but the longer he looked at her fragile feminine features contorted by anguish, the more the flame of rage in his eyes lessened. “We’re not done, Tish. It’s going to happen, and you damn well know it as well as I do. With us there’s only one ending or beginning, because of the way it was.”

She breathed out no.

He wasn’t listening. “You run this time and I’ll find you. Don’t even try it.”

She opened the car door and escaped. The kitchen door was unlocked and she ran through, past the living room and hall, up the stairs. In seconds she was leaning against the closed door of her bedroom, fighting to stop the flow of hot tears.

Sex was all he had been talking about, not love. He felt no love after all this time?
Why should he
was the silent cry inside.

She moved forward, removing her clothes in the darkness. The urge was to pack and flee. The urge was to forget Julia. But unfortunately she simply could not forget. Her pulse finally calmed. She was not running again. It was time for action, time to get them both out of their limbo of a marriage. Five years past time.

But she could never face going to bed with Kern again. Even after tonight, she didn’t trust herself. She would freeze and fail him. The last time, she had put herself back together. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do it again. Not again…

Trisha did not wake until nine, a late hour in this household, so she was not surprised to find the house empty and no sign of Kern when she went downstairs. Dressed in the new jeans and shirt, with a battered pair of tennis shoes she’d remembered to throw into her suitcase, she gulped down half a cup of coffee and carted a sweet roll outside with her.

She was determined to work herself into a better frame of mind. Last night she had slept long and hard, but dreams had haunted her. Kern’s lovemaking had been rapturously consummated in one dream; yet in another he had thrown the name of tease at her, which churned like pain inside. In a third dream he had repeated over and over, “There’s only one way it can end for us, Tish. In bed. I can get you out of my system so easily if I see once and for all how cold and ungiving a woman you are!”

Daylight had come as a relief. She felt a need to do something physical to distract her from the increasing confusion she felt around Kern. Brushing crumbs off her hands from the roll, she shoved them in her back pockets and walked.

Kern’s land was a unique blend of landscapes. At the highest level was the spruce and fir forest, dense and abundant with berries at this time of the year, trillium sometimes blanketing a long stretch of forest floor. Some of the most spectacular waterfalls were above those areas he kept private, one of which she knew was uniquely special to any place on earth, yet it was not where she headed.

Below the fir-tipped peaks was the kind of land the campers came for, the cove-hardwood forest the region was famous for. It was magical to walk through. The huge tree trunks, some so wide four or five men couldn’t span their arms around them, stretched to the sky, forming leafy umbrellas high above her head. Yellow poplar, oak, basswood, hemlock—she remembered only a few of the names. Sunlight dappled down in long dusty streaks, shining on dogwood and rhododendron and an incredible number of wildflowers that only flourished in this protected area. Soft mosses covering the rich dark earth felt spongy beneath her feet.

An unusual wistfulness touched her expression as she walked. The city was her life now. She had roots established and a frenetically paced job that usually suited her well. But unwillingly, she could too easily remember that it wasn’t a cement-and-computer world where she’d wanted to raise her children, but here, with nature’s values and nature’s laws.

A hot whispering breeze brushed against her checks as she continued on, trailing a sprawling pattern of delicate white mountain laurel that bordered the path. Half an hour later she glimpsed the roof of Kern’s horse barn, and a wry smile touched her lips. Out of simple curiosity she headed that way. It was very dark inside, and the smells seemed doubly pervasive because of it. Trisha loved the smell of leather that was well cared for and recently polished, fresh hay and the scent of the horses themselves.

She noticed that two stalls were empty and suspected that either Kern or Jack had rented the horses out to campers. One horse stomped his feet at the sound of the stranger entering; another let out a plaintive whinny, bored after yesterday’s rain and inactivity. She stroked the silky necks as she ambled by. Four of the horses she’d never seen before, but of course Kern would have expanded his stock in five years.

“Would you ride with me?”

Trisha whirled, startled by the sudden tiny voice that seemed to come from nowhere. “Hello,” she offered cheerfully to the pigtailed little blonde dejectedly leaning against the stable door. She recognized the child from breakfast the day before. “It’s Georgia, isn’t it?”

The child nodded. “Would you go for a little ride with me?” she requested again. “My mom’s sick, and my dad promised but now he can’t. I can ride real good, but no one will let me go alone.”

Trisha crouched down to be more on a level with the big sad eyes. “Oh, I’d love to, honey, but I’m not very good with horses. I wouldn’t even know how to saddle one.”

The big blue eyes fluttered wide with hope. “You don’t need saddles. You just put on a big blanket. We could just go for a little while. Mr. Jack’ll say okay, and so will my daddy. Please? Oh, please?”

“Honey, I just can’t…”

One huge crystal of a tear formed in the child’s eye and slowly dribbled down her cheek. Trisha sighed. The first time she had gotten on a horse she had set off at an instant gallop and all too soon found herself head over heels, rolling on the ground. Her relationship with horses from then on had been never to travel in the direction of the stables without sugar, carrots or apples, all of which she was willing to deliver with crooning words and petting, and all from the other side of the wooden gates.

Georgia’s mother was still in her nightgown and nursing a cold. Her father was making tea for his wife. Trisha went into humorous detail as to her utter lack of experience with horses, her proven lack of control over them, and the more relevant fact that Georgia was their only daughter. The Shearers were clearly more interested—and grateful—in the idea of a babysitter.

And Jack proved equally helpful, bustling promptly ahead of them to put the reins and blanket on a huge roan at the far end of the stables. “Kern already told me to give you any help you wanted if you wandered down here. I thought he said for sure you wouldn’t be near the horses, but it doesn’t matter. Mildred’s just a lamb, and I’ll show you a good easy trail to follow. You won’t run into any trouble. If you’re worried at all, though, I’ll get a mount and go with you. Kern said—”

“No, thank you,” Trisha said firmly, aware of the blonde’s admiring look. She grinned. “Some humiliations are better faced alone. A lamb, you say?”

“Really, she’s very gentle.”

It was not as if she had other plans for the morning, and a short trip around the campgrounds wasn’t going to kill her. Georgia comfortably vaulted in front like a pro, and Jack helped Trisha slide on just behind her.

Three hours later Trisha snail-paced the walk to Kern’s with a gamboling Georgia at her side, seeking lunch. Hurrying was not the order of the day. Unconsciously she stiffened still further at the sight of Kern at the door, his arms folded across his chest as if he had been waiting. His eyes narrowed only momentarily on the child and then rested on Trisha, who was making a monumental effort to walk normally.

“I was about to send out a search party for you. There was a time you wouldn’t go a quarter mile off the trail on your own, bright eyes; and in this country, if you haven’t forgotten, one leaves word before just taking off for hours at a time.”

“It never occurred to me that you would be worried,” she answered honestly, not at all pleased that just looking at him was enough to promote an image of last night, of steel-gray eyes softened in passion. She swept past him to the cool bright kitchen with the child in hand, all too aware he was radiating both impatience and exasperation. “I’m sorry, Kern. I knew you were busy and I never planned on being in your way. Jack knew where we were. Have you had lunch?”

“I would have, but I kept expecting you to come in. Rhea had been coming over to fix meals, but somehow she’s under the impression that she’s not wanted here for the moment. I wonder who could conceivably have given her that idea.”

It didn’t seem particularly wise to answer that. She ran a quick brush through her hair and washed her hands in the bathroom, returning to the kitchen to make sandwiches, with Georgia perched on the counter next to her. It was Georgia who put cheese, meat and lettuce to the bread slices. The first finished product, wobbly though it was, was presented proudly to “Mr. Kern,” who now sat in a kitchen chair, watching both of them.

“I’ve never been fond of bolo—” Kern started to say, and was quelled at the pride in the five-year-old’s eyes.

Trisha was ridiculously proud of him for rallying. “Thank you, honey,” he told her. The child beamed. “Have you been with Trisha all morning?”

Georgia nodded shyly.

“Then would you mind telling me, honey, where the hell—”

“Kern!”

“Where the two of you have been for the last four hours?” he amended.

Georgia’s sandwiches were decorated and cut to look like faces, raisins for eyes and carrot curls for smiles. The child sat next to Kern. Trisha had no intention of sitting anywhere. Ever. In the next life there were be no horses, certainly not bony ones. She munched as she continued working, slicing and paring vegetables; there was enough time to make a decent soup for Mrs. Shearer’s evening meal.

“We’ve been riding,” Georgia said shyly.

“Have you?” Kern said, as if he were properly impressed. His glance at Trisha reminded her that he knew very well her feeling for horses.

“T’sha rode behind me,” Georgia explained seriously. “We rode all over the whole mountains. Mildred didn’t want to go home. I didn’t either. And Daddy said T’sha could have me all day. I didn’t even fall off once.”

“And T’sha?” Kern prompted with equal gravity.

“We were going up this huge mountain and T’sha slid off his back. It took ages and ages to get her back on again.”

“Did it now?”

“We picked berries,” Georgia continued, with growing confidence in the tall, fierce-looking man who seemed remarkably interested in her morning. “Wild berries. And Mildred ran away. Boy, can she go! I helped T’sha catch her.”

Trisha burst out laughing. “Some help! I did the running and you called out between mouthfuls of berries.” She swiped at Georgia’s face, then at the counter and table, clearing up swiftly and efficiently. She resisted the urge to wipe off Kern’s lazy grin as well.

“I’m beginning to get the feeling there’s a reason you’re not sitting down for your lunch, Tish,” Kern drawled.

“Are you?”

“Could I touch your beard?” Georgia requested. “I’ve never touched a beard.”

His eyebrows rose slightly at the request, but he obligingly bent down.

“Kind of scratchy,” Georgia judged.

“I can’t shave with my left hand,” he said as justification. “But in another day or so—”

“Oh, keep it, Kern,” Trisha said impulsively, and then could have bitten her tongue. What was it to her if he were clean-shaven or bearded, and the slate-gray eyes were suddenly on her like a floodlight. “Or shave it off. As you like, of course,” she added with careful indifference.

“So you suddenly have a liking for beards, do you?”

“No, I—”

“Suddenly you put together an old-fashioned mountain breakfast in fifteen minutes flat. I see you’ve got your makeup off and a smudge of dirt on your jeans. And up on a horse again…” He shook his head in mocking disbelief, but his eyes held a gleam in them that reflected last night’s memories. Those things were not the only things that had changed in Trisha. “If you don’t watch it, you might just fall in love with the mountain life all over again, Tish—”

“You must not have been listening to the story,” she said stiffly. “If you needed proof I’m a city girl, Kern, all you had to do was hear how I fell off the most placid ‘lamb’ in your stables!”

Kern stood up, stretching lazily. “Would you like a good rubdown, bright eyes? If you’re complaining of stiff muscles…” His eyes took in the fit of her snug pair of jeans, the way it would all fit together without the pair of jeans. Unwillingly Trisha could feel a faint color escape to her cheeks, imagining, as he meant her to, his palms intimately working on…muscles.

“There’s no need,” she said crisply. “Besides, right after I finish here I’m taking Georgia’s mother some soup. She isn’t feeling well, and after that—”

After that she’d taken one look at the camp’s log-cabin headquarters, and decided to make it the afternoon’s project. She had to have something to do with herself for two days, and the need for cleanup was a direct measure of Kern’s inability to get around since his accident. Jack certainly hadn’t objected to the idea; he had all but thrown his arms around her at the offer to reorganize the chaos of files and first-aid supplies and camping equipment.

“Somehow I’m not surprised you managed to make arrangements to be away from here for the afternoon,” Kern said dryly. “I thought you’d choose shopping, though, Tish. It’s a much farther distance to town.” He waited, but she offered no reply. “Rhea’s invited the two of us over for dinner at seven.”

Trisha turned from the door where Georgia was already headed out, her back suddenly stiff. “Well, you go, of course,” she said casually. “I don’t think I will, Kern. By then I’ll be tired.”

He was silent for a moment, and she looked back at him, unable to read the oddly disturbed look in his eyes. “That’s what you want, Tish?” he said deliberately.

“I—yes, of course it is.” To think of Kern with another woman…but of course it was the only answer she could give. She was not part of his life anymore; he wasn’t even asking her to be part of his life again. He was only asking her to sleep with him, and she had to be certain he understood she wasn’t interested.

It was past nine. About a dozen people were stretched out lazily around the campfire, all of them more or less in the same condition: grubby, sleepy and sated from the community dinner cooked on the fire not an hour before. Trisha had a half-full can of beer in her hand—she never drank beer—and her tousled blonde head and shoulders were slumped against a huge old log, with Jack on one side of her and little Georgia on the other. She surveyed her stretched-out legs and the absolutely filthy appearance of her jeans with rueful amusement, half listening to the lazy conversations around her. Jack had just put down an old country fiddle that seemed to know all the old Appalachian hill songs, and she was still humming a few in her brain, too tired even to put on her shoes.

“It was a bear and her two cubs, I swear it was…you’ve never seen anyone run so fast in your entire life…”

“The trout were just jumping for the bait…”

The stories were getting better as the hour was getting later. The smoke from the fire curled in a lazy spiral straight up the cloak of trees surrounding them, making a natural tepee. The night was sleepy warm, and she could hear the hooting of an owl in the distance.

“What I’d give for a life like this all the time,” a short, stoop-shouldered man murmured from the distance. “Hey, Jack, what do you have to do around here to buy a piece of ground?”