One Summer (31 page)

“I’ve missed you,” he said a long time afterward as she lay with her head on his chest, threading her fingers through the crisp black curls that grew there.

“I’ve missed you, too.” She lifted her head, propping her chin on his chest to smile at him. They were stretched out side by side, with her leg thrown over his and his arm around her shoulders as he idly stroked her skin. The bedclothes had been lost somewhere at the foot of the bed.

“I thought about what you said last night. About my being drunk, and having a chip on my shoulder, and all that.”

“I was mad.”

“I know.” He smiled a little. “You look cute mad.”

Rachel tweaked a chest hair so hard he yelped. Removing her fingers, he rubbed the injured spot and gave her a reproachful glance.

“That hurt.”

“It was meant to. I hate to be called cute.”

“But you are cute. The cutest thing I ever saw in my life. Especially your cute little a—”

He started to say “ass,” but Rachel clapped her hand over his mouth in the nick of time.

“Don’t swear,” she said.

He cocked an eyebrow at her and removed her hand, placing it back on his chest.

“Trying to reform me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I probably need it. Which brings me back to what I wanted to say in the first place.”

“Which is?”

“You were right. I was drunk last night. It won’t happen again.”

“Won’t it?”

She hardly dared believe what she was hearing. He shook his head.

“Nope. Behold a newly converted teetotaler.” He looked over at Wolf, who was jealously regarding his master while sprawled panting on his stomach in the hall, then back at Rachel. “I was starting to remind myself of my old man. He drank from morning to night for as long as I can remember. I’m not going to let myself end up like that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“Life’s too short.”

“Yes.”

For a moment they were silent as they both, without wanting to, remembered Glenda. Johnny looked at Rachel.

“You really want me to get my hair cut?”

Rachel laughed, glad to shake off the somber mood that had threatened. “Not if you don’t want to. You’ve got beautiful hair.”

“Why, thank you, ma’am.” He hesitated, then a wry smile curved his mouth. “I wear it this way basically because it annoys the hell—oh, sorry, what should I say? heck?—out of people.”

“I know.”

“So I’ll get it cut if you want.”

“Thank you. But I don’t want you to make too many sacrifices. Staying sober’s plenty.”

“So you’re not going to make me give up my motorcycle?”

Rachel looked up at him with sudden interest.

“Would you, if I asked?”

He caught her hand and carried it to his mouth, where he pressed his lips to the palm. “There’s not much I wouldn’t do if you asked, Rachel.”

The phone beside the bed rang. Its shrill summons was so unexpected, Rachel jumped.

Johnny stretched out a hand and lifted the receiver to his ear.

“Hello?”

He listened, frowning, as his eyes traveled over Rachel’s face.

“Why, yes, ma’am, she is.”

Rachel’s eyes widened as he handed the phone to her.

“Your mother,” he mouthed.

Rachel grimaced but accepted the receiver. “Hello, Mother,” she said with resignation.

“Rachel Elisabeth Grant, what are you doing with that Harris boy in his apartment?”

Rachel almost told her, but before she could, Elisabeth continued in an urgent near-whisper that Rachel supposed was meant to keep Johnny from overhearing.

“Did you hear about the Watkins woman?”

“Yes, I did.”

“That she was murdered? Just like Marybeth Edwards? Last night?”

“Yes, Mother. It’s a terrible tragedy.”

“And you’re in his apartment?” Elisabeth’s voice said plainly that she couldn’t believe her daughter was guilty of such stupidity.

“Johnny didn’t kill her, Mother.”

“For goodness’ sake, Rachel, can he hear you?”

“Yes, he certainly can.”

“Oh, my God! Is he holding you hostage? Should I call the police?”

“No, he is not holding me hostage, and you should not call the police.” Rachel was exasperated, but Johnny’s face broke into a broad grin. “He did not kill Glenda Watkins, Mother. I know he didn’t, because he was with me last night when it happened.”

“With you! But you were home in bed!”

“No, I wasn’t.” Rachel sighed. “Listen, I’ll tell you all about it when I get home, okay? Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I probably won’t be home until sometime tonight. We’re going to go out and get something to eat. Unless—”

She lifted her brows questioningly at Johnny and covered the mouthpiece so her mother couldn’t hear. “Do you want to go to my house for Sunday dinner? My mother is a fantastic cook.”

Johnny shook his head in comical alarm. Rachel had to smile.

“We’re going out to eat,” she repeated, uncovering the mouthpiece. Then, with a teasing look at Johnny, she added, “But guess who’s coming to dinner next Sunday?”

“Rachel, you wouldn’t!” Elisabeth sounded horrified.

“Yes, I would, Mother. Don’t worry, he doesn’t look any more eager than you sound. But I want you two to get to know each other.”

“Oh, Rachel, why?” Elisabeth moaned.

“Because I’m madly in love with him, Mother,” Rachel said, her eyes locking with Johnny’s as she spoke. On the other end of the line, Elisabeth gave a little choked cry.

To Rachel’s surprise, Johnny reached down and took the receiver from her hand.

“Rachel will call you back, Mrs. Grant,” he said into the receiver, then put it gently in its cradle.

Rachel lay very still as he slowly turned back to her. He was frowning as he hitched himself up some, then folded both hands beneath his head, propping his head higher on the pillow so that he could better see her face.

“Did you mean that, or did you just say it to make her mad?”

Rachel met his eyes. “I meant it.”

“Oh, yeah?” The beginnings of a smile curved his lips.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The smile broadened into a grin of pure delight. Johnny reached for her and pulled her across his chest and down onto her back on the mattress. He leaned over her, propped on one elbow.

“Care to repeat it? To me this time.”

Rachel looked up at him, at the darkly handsome face, the smoky blue eyes, the long, sensuous mouth with the small cut in its corner. She lifted a tender finger to trace the bruise on his cheekbone.

“I’m in love with you,” she said softly.

“You left out the ‘madly,’ ” he chided. “I want to hear the whole thing, said right to my face.”

“I’m
madly
in love with you.” Her lips curved in a tender smile as happiness bloomed and swelled inside her. There, she’d said it. Her secret was out, revealed, secret no more. She’d cast her cap over the windmill, and she was glad.

“Rachel.” There was wonder in his eyes, and passion, too, as he cupped her face with his hands and bent to seek her mouth. His kiss was exquisitely gentle, exquisitely intimate, saying things that he had not yet put into words. Rachel, enraptured, wrapped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the sheer glory of his lovemaking.

Later, when she lay wrapped in his arms in a supremely contented, half-dozing state, she heard a sound that made her frown. For a moment she couldn’t imagine what on earth it could be.

“Your stomach’s growling!” she said, looking up at him wide-eyed. Johnny grimaced at her.

“I’m starving,” he confessed. “I haven’t eaten since about six o’clock last night.”

“You should have said something!”

“I had to choose between food for the body or food for the soul, and the soul won.”

The crooked grin on his face dazzled her with its charm. She reached up, put a hand behind his head, and drew his mouth down for a warm, lingering kiss.

“Christ.” He pulled her higher up on his chest, wrapping his arms around her and turning with her so that she once again lay beneath him. His intentions were very clear.

“None of that now,” she said, poking him in the ribs.
“We’re going to get up, and we’re going to get something to eat. We can’t stay in bed all day.”

“I’d like to.” But his stomach growled again, and Johnny reluctantly released her and got to his feet. For a moment, as he stood naked beside the bed, Rachel allowed herself the luxury of just looking at him. He was really the most beautiful man, she thought. Long and lean, his shoulders and arms corded with muscle, his stomach ridged with it, he looked better than any
Playgirl
centerfold that she and Becky had snickered over as teenagers. A V of thick black curls covered his chest, tapering to a narrow line that ran over his navel and farther down to widen again at his genitals. For a moment her eyes focused there with pure pleasure. He was watching her look at him, his eyes intent. Rachel, meeting his gaze and recalling that she was lying stark naked atop the mussed bottom sheet, stretched slowly, deliberately, like a lazy cat. As his eyes heated, traveling the length of her arching body, she felt deliciously sinful. And desirable. So desirable.

His stomach growled again.

“All right. That’s it. In the shower with you, before I faint from lack of nourishment.”

He reached down, scooped her up in his arms, and stepping over Wolf, who looked disdainful at such goings-on, carried her into the bathroom, where he dumped her on her feet in the tub. He turned on both faucets, tested the temperature of the water, pulled the little peg that activated the shower, and stepped in beside her, closing the curtain behind him.

33

S
he was thirty-four years old, and she had never in her life showered with a man. As Johnny soaped her back, then ran sensuous hands beneath her arms to cup and lave her breasts, Rachel realized just what she had been missing. There was a whole world out there, a wonderful world of the senses between a man and a woman, that she had barely glimpsed. The small affairs she had been party to in the past were nothing like this. As his soapy hands slid down over her stomach, over her hips and thighs and around to her behind, she figured out why. Because this time, the love in the word
lovemaking
was the most important component. She was so in love with him that she was giddy with it.

She, Rachel Grant, was in love with Johnny Harris. The notion was so ridiculous that she giggled.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, growling—her response to his questing fingers was something other than he had expected. He turned her in his arms and looked down into her face with mock sternness while the steaming needles of water soaked them both.

“You are. I am.
We
are. Whoever would have thought it?”

He ran his fingers through her soaked hair, separating the strands so that the rushing water could wash away the
last of the shampoo. His hands slid down to rest on her slim waist.

“I’ve been thinking of it for years. Almost half my life, in fact.”

Rachel stared up at him, suddenly serious. She’d been in the midst of the enjoyable process of soaping his chest, but her fingers stilled as her task was forgotten. With his hair as wet as hers and sleeked back from his face, he looked very different from the Johnny to whom she was accustomed. He was just as handsome, just as sexy, but older, more mature. In that moment, not the smallest hint of the overgrown adolescent remained. He was an adult, just as she was. The difference in their ages seemed no more an obstacle between them than the dissimilarity in their hair color.

“Now that you’ve got what you wanted from me, how long till the honeymoon’s over?” Rachel asked in a jocular way, because she didn’t want him to suspect how very, very much she needed a particular answer. Johnny had said nothing about love, only a great deal about need and lust. If all he wanted was to fulfill a teenage sex fantasy, he’d done that in spades. Her fingers started to move again, but rather jerkily, rubbing the soap in circles over his chest.

“Teacher, I haven’t even scratched the surface of what I want from you.” He was smiling, but something at the back of his eyes made Rachel’s heart speed up. His hands came up to catch and cover hers, stopping their halfhearted movements and trapping the soap against his chest.

“It’s going to take me years to get what I want from you. It may take the rest of my life. Maybe even longer than that.”

“Oh, yeah?” She smiled rather mistily up at him through the relentless curtain of water.

“Yeah.”

He bent to kiss her, and the soap skittered away unnoticed into the pooled water at their feet.

They stayed in the shower until the water ran cold and Johnny’s stomach had started its rumbling again.

“How about if I cook, instead of us going out?” Johnny asked after they had both stumbled out of the tub and stood shivering on the cold tile floor drying themselves. The question was faintly muffled because he was vigorously toweling his hair.

“You?” Rachel, who had wrapped a towel around her body, stopped running a wide-toothed comb through her towel-dried hair for a moment to stare with some disbelief at him through the mirror.