Silk and Stone (42 page)

“Sammie wants Charlotte to be no trouble to us. I’ve seen Sammie poring over her checkbook at night. Her savings are running out.”

“I suppose it would be highly old-fashioned of me to point out that women don’t have to earn their own livings before they can get married. Jake would take care of her. Jake
wants
to take care of her and Charlotte.”

“You are an old Neanderthal, but I love you dearly.
Call me
if you hear from them.”

“I promise I’ll call.” From his tone, she could almost see him smiling. “But you have to promise you’ll stop worrying—and that you’ll go for a walk with me after dinner. A long walk. We’ll mash some daffodils.”

“
Hugh
. We’ve got to set a good example.” But she was smiling too. She felt giddy these days.

“
Feel
the gears needing to shift.” Jake sat close beside her, one arm stretched across the back of the seat, lying casually against her shoulders. The station wagon was worth every penny of five hundred dollars, and not one red cent more—as Sam had pointed out firmly when its owner wanted six hundred. It was as big as a tank, and it lumbered around the empty parking lot of Pandora’s elementary school like a big, paneled beetle in the late afternoon sun. “Feel the vibrations with your fingertips,” he added.

Sam pushed the floor shift, and the gears protested like a metallic monster gnashing its teeth. She grimaced. “I need specifics,” she told him grimly. “Don’t talk about vibrations. Tell me what speed is right.”

“It depends.”

The gears groaned again. She stamped the clutch and took a deep breath. “I thought machines worked on precise principles. I’d never have bought a stick-shift if I had to learn car psychology to drive it.”

“This is a fine old car. A bargain. Your eyes lit up the second you saw all the space in the back.”

“I had images of it filled with bolts of cloth. I was seduced. You said it’d be easy to learn to drive.” She shifted again, without any better success. “I will learn to drive it, but it may need a new gear box.”

He put his hand over hers on the knob of the shift. The contact was warm and strong and helplessly appealing. Sam resisted the urge routinely. For two months she’d held her feelings back, afraid to waltz into his arms, afraid this was all a dream. She couldn’t quite name what she was waiting for—the soft
click
of her conscience, assuring her that Aunt Alex couldn’t harm him for helping her, an anchor of some kind that would make her believe she couldn’t be carried back out to sea, dragging Jake and Charlotte with her to drown.

“You think too much,” he said softly. “Just let things slide where they belong. Go with the flow.”

He said it with the slightest hint of provocation, but enough to turn her muscles to jelly. Sam met his eyes. She let the car roll, and he eased the gearshift noiselessly into first. It was like a dance; she was hypnotized by the guiding pressure of his hand and the amused intensity in his scrutiny. Sam steered the car in a large circle, glimpsing oaks at the edge of the parking lot as they slid past. She had trouble taking her eyes off him. “Step on the clutch again,” he whispered. “Careful. No need to stomp it. Smooth.”

“You’ve got a way with cars.”

“It’s all in the timing.” His hand flexed on hers. She shifted into second. The engine purred. He smiled—slow, approving. “See there? We’ll be cruising along in high any minute, before we know what’s happened.”

Out of control
, Sam thought, and jerked her attention to their course. Too late. They had meandered out of the circle and were bearing down quickly on the curb at the lot’s edge. She forgot the clutch and jammed her foot on the brake. The old station wagon seized up like an asthma victim just as it hit the curb. The impact tossed her forward, and Jake thrust his arm across the steering wheel. Her forehead bounced on the corded surface of hard muscle.

“See what happens when you don’t pay attention to
specifics
?” she said, embarrassed. “You made me run into the curb.”

“Me?” He frowned and gestured dramatically with one of his big, suddenly clumsy hands. “I was in charge of shifting. You were in charge of looking out for curbs.”

“Well, maybe I like a bumpy ride.”

“You’re gonna be hell on mailboxes and fireplugs.”

A soft laugh burst from her, and she was so surprised to feel like laughing, she couldn’t stop. She bent her head to his arm and chortled. Jake leaned closer to her. “I can’t promise that I’m good at much else,” he said sternly, “but I can damn sure teach a girl how to drive.”

“Oh, Jake.” She twisted toward him suddenly, lifted her face, and kissed him. It was an awkward attempt, spontaneous and meant to reassure him. She caught just the corner of his mouth, lingered there in a startled daze as a current of long-denied excitement overwhelmed her, then drew back.

She had always known that the moment they opened this door, it would be impossible to close it again. They traded a searing look, his eyes half closed and his face flushed. Slowly, he kissed her back, a straight-on, careful caress, infinitely gentle but hungry.

She wound her arms around him. The scent and taste of him consumed her. He was holding her so tightly, neither of them could breathe, and she was dimly aware of gasping between kisses, and of the sound of his own rough inhalations. Everything was quick and fervent—stroking his hair, catching his face between her hands, arching against him when his fingers slid down her spine, her floppy shorts riding up on one leg as she pressed her leg snugly to his thigh, reveling in the coarse texture of his jeans and the hard, flexing muscles underneath.

She had never been drunk before. Knee-walking drunk was how she felt now, and for the first time she understood why every society since the beginning of time tried to make rules about sex. Wanting someone the way she wanted Jake was a powerful addiction. She drew on the last of her failing willpower and gently tried
to push him away but realized it was a halfhearted effort. “I know. I know what’s been going on. I’m ruining you. Stop. You’re making me forget too much.”

He pulled back from her just enough to look into her eyes. His expression was anguished and bewildered. He shook his head warily. “If this is what getting ruined feels like, for God’s sake, don’t stop.”

“
Jake.
” She gripped the front of his thin cotton shirt. “I saw Patsy Jones a few weeks ago, when I was job hunting.
She told me
. None of the jewelers in town will buy stones from you anymore. The sheriff won’t ask you to track for him.” Her voice was raw. She tugged at his shirt fiercely. “Aunt Alex isn’t just trying to keep me from making a living around here, she’s after you too.”

He gripped her shoulders. His eyes darkened. “Listen to me. There are a dozen people outside this town who’ll buy what I bring them. And plenty of tracking work I can do outside Pandora—I don’t take money for that anyway. God, I knew you felt guilty and it had something to do with me, but I hadn’t figured it out yet.”

“I’m making you an outsider in your own town.”

“I’ve never been anything but an outsider. And neither has Ellie. People have always said we’re strange.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you. You make it too easy to forget everything—”

“I want you to forget about everything but me. Because that’s how I feel about you.” He sank his mouth onto hers. Sam’s argument was temporarily lost in the blindness of need. It was true. She couldn’t rationalize against this tidal wave of love and desire, even as fear rose up inside her like a dark taunt. They clung together in silent harmony, but tears slid down her face.

Jake broke away and looked at her, his expression troubled but determined. “I never touched a girl before you. I never kissed one. I always told myself I’d try my damnedest to be everything you wanted without any practice. But all I’ve done is make you unhappy.”

“I’m unhappy because you’re so wonderful at it. I don’t want to stop.”

“Then let’s just stop until we get married. Married—with
all the bells and whistles and certificates, so the rest of the world can say it’s official. I want it to be perfect.”

He had a way of saying just the right thing and making her melt inside. “So do I,” she whispered. “I always thought it would be. I thought my dad would walk me up to you, and my mother would be there to watch.”

He sighed. Slowly he raised a hand and stroked the back of his fingers along her cheek. “That’s the only part of it I can’t make right for you.” He cleared his throat. “But I can teach you to drive this damned car, and I can help you find a job. And I can keep you so busy, you never have time to look over your shoulder for your aunt’s shadow.” He rested his head against hers. “Because a shadow can’t stop us,” he added gruffly. “We’ve already proved that.”

Sam shivered.
She’ll wait. She’ll always be waiting, and when we least expect it …

She had never forgotten Clara Big Stick’s warnings. All that talk about Aunt Alex’s evil, about dies being cast, about courting doom—Sam didn’t want mystical portents to rule her life the way they’d ruled her mother’s, but Mrs. Big Stick had scared her.

“Talk to me,” Jake said gruffly. “There’s something you’re ashamed to say.”

She tilted her head back and looked at him in wistful defeat. “Hasn’t anybody ever told you that men aren’t supposed to figure out other people’s feelings?”

“I’ll grunt and look dense as a doorknob if you’ll do what women are supposed to do—talk.”

“All right. I told you Mrs. Big Stick came to see me at Aunt Alex’s shop. I didn’t tell you everything she said.”

“Now’s the time, then.”

Sam spoke haltingly, studying his reaction. Nothing about it seemed to surprise or distract him. When she finished, he nodded. He got out of the car and came around to her side, moving with swift, purposeful strides. “Slide over. You can practice bumping things later.”

Staring at him morosely, Sam moved aside. He settled behind the steering wheel. She tugged at his sleeve. “I’m not saying I believe what she said any more than I believe she made me start talking by dunking me in the river when I was three years old. But I do know what my aunt is capable of doing, and—”

“Oh, you believe Clara,” Jake said. He cranked the engine. “And you need to hear her say she was wrong.”

“She’s not going to drop me bare-butt naked into a cold river again. An icy bath and mystical spirits didn’t change my life the day I started talking—
you
did.”

“Something special helped us both that day.” He gave her a quick glance, loving but determined, as he guided the old station wagon away from the curb. “And it’s not going to let us down now.”

Clara had a yard full of self-important dogs who barked at the drop of a hat, and their friendly silence was the first sign that someone uncommonly trustworthy had just driven into her secluded hollow.

She left turnip greens simmering on the stove and lumbered through a tiny living room cluttered with old furniture, knickknacks, and piles of books. She stood on the whitewashed front porch of her whitewashed frame house, watching Jake and Samantha walk up the sandy path through her herb garden. The dogs crowded around them in the twilight, looking up at Jake happily and nuzzling his hands.

Samantha carried a large gold box wrapped in cellophane. Clara squinted. Candy. Jake knew about her sweet tooth, and he knew a person didn’t show up for conjuring advice without a polite gift to offer.

So he had finally come to ask for her help.

But he couldn’t bribe her goodwill with candy. “I already told you what to do,” she announced, holding up both hands. They stopped at the bottom of the porch steps. Samantha looked sad. Jake looked respectful but grim. “I told you,” Clara continued, pointing at Jake, “a long time ago. You’re one of the people. You were
taught the right ways by Granny Raincrow. I can’t fault Samantha for making mistakes—she’s not one of us. She was raised
ignorant
. But you know better, Jake. You know a ravenmocker can’t be stopped once it gets its mind set.”

“Am I a ravenmocker?” Sam asked wearily. “It doesn’t sound very good.”