Silver and Spice (9 page)

Buttes gave way to steep hills by midafternoon. A huge, low violet cloud ahead of her kept growing larger on the horizon, as the road continued to dip and curve and climb. Only late in the afternoon did she realize that it wasn’t a cloud at all, but mountains that reached for the sky in front of her, snow-peaked and craggy, proud and royal purple.

“We’ll be in the heart of the Bighorns by nightfall.” Jake suddenly yawned from behind her, then moved forward to crouch down on his haunches between the seats. “Would you believe there’s snow predicted in the Bighorns tonight, yet it’ll be seventy degrees tomorrow in Idaho? That’s
West.
”
 
He yawned again sleepily. “And to really get you into the spirit of the land—” he grinned “—I think I’ll serve you yellow-jacket soup by a campfire. Think you’re ready?”

She didn’t particularly feel ready for anything. This strange, unpredictable landscape frightened her, evoked odd and uncomfortable feelings. Awareness of things she hadn’t thought of in years, didn’t really want to think of…yet her eyes were captivated by those mountains, and she risked a quick glance at Jake after maneuvering the motor home around a treacherous turn. “
Yellow-jacket soup
—as in
bees?
Are you out of your mind?”

He was.

Jake drove two forked sticks into the ground, then took out a pocket knife and started to whittle the bark off the spit that was to lie between them. The fire, dancing and crackling, was waiting for him. “The thing with yellow-jacket soup,” he said gravely, “is to find the yellow jackets’ ground nest when it’s full of grubs. And this is all going to be very difficult to explain if you don’t wipe that cheeky grin off your face.”

“I’m so sorry.” Anne’s eyes flashed merriment. “Most recipes start with ‘Preheat the oven,’ but all right, Jake. Then what?”

“Why
do I sense this doubting-Thomas attitude?” Jake sounded wounded.

“You’re imagining it,” she assured him.

“How are you coming there?”

“Fine.” She was kneading some sort of flour mixture in a big bowl on her lap, another culinary creation of Jake’s. Which was fine, except that it was snowing. No big blizzard, but there was no question that the white stuff fluttering down was a little more than falling stars. The cold was seeping through her culottes; it was the biggest, blackest night she’d ever seen; and they were totally alone in a state campground in the Bighorns. Naturally. No one else would be camping—much less cooking out—on a night like this. No one in his right mind.

“Are you ready to hear what else you have to do to make yellow-jacket soup?” Jake demanded.

“I certainly am.” The doughy horror was sticking under her fingernails, but she continued kneading. At least the mixture was coating her hands—one way to ward off frostbite.

“You get the grubs off the nest by poking them with a lit match. Then you heat the nest over the fire until it dries out a little. About then you pick off the yellow jackets and cook them separately over the fire, pop them into boiling water, add a little seasoning, and
voilà
…”

“Yellow-jacket soup,” she applauded. Jake faced her with a level stare as he took the bowl from her hands, removed the dough and set it in a greased pan near the fire to rise. Anne started laughing helplessly, and pushed up the collar of her coat with her forearms, since her hands were white and sticky.

“It’s an
authentic
Indian recipe—”

She started laughing again.

“—that happens to be quite delectable.”
He clapped her on the back when she started choking.

“Come on, Jake, you’ve never eaten any such thing in your life!”

“I have, too. Once.” He paused, his face taking on a peculiar expression. “God in heaven, once was enough.” He rapidly turned toward the fire again. “Nevertheless, you’re getting an authentic Indian meal tonight, lady. Just not quite
that
authentic.”

“So tell me.”

He cast her a sudden critical glance. “Why didn’t you tell me you were getting cold?” He hustled her speedily into the motor home, washed the dough off her hands, haphazardly draped her shoulders with a blanket, and covered her hands with a pair of Italian kid gloves he discovered in her purse before hustling her back outside again. Jake gave the gloves a wry look. They were as soft as a baby’s bottom, but they wouldn’t keep her hands warm even in the tropics. She loved those gloves, though.

When she was settled on the log with the blanket beneath her, he started in again. “First we’re having bannock.” He motioned to the floury concoction she’d made. After the oddly textured, stiff dough had risen for a few minutes, he stretched it and wrapped it around a stick in coils. “It’s a trail bread. You roast it over the fire. No prospector or trail hand or self-respecting Indian would ever have a meal without it.
Very
important.”

“Aaah.”

He cast her another critical look, though evidently not for that peculiar sound she’d made. Moments later, her head was covered with his orange wool scarf. The fabric chafed her soft cheeks, but it was certainly warm; she just had a sneaking suspicion that the men from the funny farm would find her any minute now. In the orange scarf and blue blanket and cranberry coat, sitting on a log with the mountains all around and the snow lazily drifting down. Worse than that, she was starting to laugh again.

“Then we’ll have cactus salad,” Jake continued as he turned his back to the fire. “Then Apache-fried rabbit. Only no rabbits happened to have the misfortune of running in front of the motor home. So it’s Apache-fried chicken, as it happens. Chicken via the grocery store, but we don’t need to mention that—”

“I don’t know when you had the time to pick the cactus,” she said delicately. Not that she doubted him.

“Well…” Jake sighed. “Once again, we had to veer just a little from our chosen course. The cactus came from a seven-and-a-quarter-ounce can.”

“Darling.” Anne rarely used casual endearments; this one was necessary to soften the blow. “Cactus doesn’t come in a can.”

He took a can out of the trash and held it up so that she could read the label: Natural Cactus in Salt Water, Drain before Using.

“I beg your pardon,” she apologized gravely.

“
You
persist
in thinking I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She persisted in thinking nothing of the kind. Jake always knew exactly what he was doing. Her smile faded, just a little. No one but Jake would have made her knead bread dough in the middle of a snowstorm in the Bighorns; no one but Jake had ever elicited purely whimsical laughter from her. She was fascinated by the mountain lore he’d picked up from heaven knew where. Fascinated, happily relieved that she wouldn’t have to eat bee soup, and just slightly…sad.

Her dark prince had always charmed her, had always created a quiet, intimate, delicious fantasy when just the two of them were together. How could she help reaching out for him? But a lifetime was very different from scattered moments. Sand castles never lasted.

Are you thinking about that boring stuff again? Her emotions warred with her mind. Anne, can’t you leave it alone even for a minute?

Jake’s eyes sought hers over the crackling fire. The chicken was sizzling on the spit, the bread was browning and the slices
of cactus were arranged on two small plates, pimiento slices between them, swimming in a dressing of tarragon-and-pepper-seasoned oil. All of it, unbelievably, looked and smelled quite good.

“You will reserve judgment, Anne, until we’ve had dinner.” His voice was still teasing, but for a moment the humor didn’t reach his eyes.

Anne decided to reserve judgment a little longer. The look in his eyes had nothing to do with Apache-fried chicken.

“Delicious, Jake. I mean it.”

Anne had tried the bannock first. The bread was a little tough, oddly sweet, and delectable with melted butter. That had given her the courage to move on to Jake’s Apache-fried chicken, and two pieces later she was licking her fingers. The strange batter was fire-sealed and crisp, the meat unbelievably succulent.

“Have another piece.” Jake dropped down beside her with a second platter of chicken. The wind was whistling through the cliffs, but at least in their sheltered valley the snow had stopped. Their fire lapped up the darkness, warming their faces and toes…but not their backs. Anne knew her spine was never going to thaw, but at the moment she was hungry for another piece of chicken…

A sterling silver fork, utterly incongruous in this wilderness, suddenly made its way in front of her nose. As Jake dangled a forkful of cactus salad before her, Anne swallowed. “Listen, Jake, it’s not that I don’t want to try your salad. I’ve grown cactus in my kitchen, you know. I
like
cactus. Which is why it occurred to me that maybe the Indians might have found an edible variety. Particularly if they were suffering from absolute starvation—”

Since her mouth was unfortunately open, Jake took advantage and inserted a sliver of the pale green cactus between her lips. It tasted like a smooth, mild avocado—not at all what she was expecting. “Good?” he asked.

She took the plate from his hands. “If I answer that, I’ll never hear the end of the I-told-you-so’s. You think I was born yesterday?”

“I told you—” With exacting precision, she aimed a forkful of chicken at his wagging tongue, and chuckled at his response.

“You’re looking for trouble,” he suggested.

Actually, she wasn’t, not just then. As rapidly as she was devouring the salad on her plate, Jake was forking cactus bits to her from his own, knowing her fondness for anything that even vaguely resembled an avocado.

“Are you cold?” he asked suddenly.

“Freezing. Don’t take that away,” she protested when he started to rise with the chicken platter.

He set it back down. “I’m beginning to think you’ve never been on a cookout before,” he said, amused.

“You know darn well I haven’t. It’s a mystery to me how people could do this for recreation. The fire, for instance. Your toes burn while your back freezes. Your fingers get sticky, which means sooner or later everything else gets sticky. At least it’s too cold for bugs, but I’m afraid to take my eyes off the woods for fear a bear or cougar will come lumbering down for its dinner. This is supposed to be competition for a restaurant with soft lighting and Irish linen and inside plumbing?”

“Anne?”

Her eyelashes flashed up, shadowing spikes on her cheeks in the firelight. How had his face loomed close so suddenly? She could smell him, all pine and cold freshness. “I hate to have to tell you this, honey, but you’re having a wonderful time.” Jake dropped a kiss on her forehead that reeked of satisfaction, readjusted his scruffy wool scarf rather possessively around her ears, and started cleaning away their debris.

A wistful expression touched her features with softness.
Yes,
darn him, she was having a perfectly wonderful time. This rough-and-tumble life was her idea of torture, but for a few
special hours… The word
lonely
surged into her mind from nowhere; loneliness was an emotion they always banished when they were together.

Rising to help, she found herself watching Jake. While she brought their few plates and silverware into the motor home, he put out the fire. He was a very fussy man. By the time he was done, there wasn’t a sign that anyone had been near their cooking site.

The wind seemed to have pushed every last cloud out of the sky, and now a silver moon cast its pale glow on the tall pines. Anne draped the blanket closer around her, waiting for Jake. He’d made fun of himself for buying the chicken from the grocery store, but every movement he made said that he was a survivor, well used to the wilderness. His rugged features caught shadow, then light; his spine was always straight, his step silent. Was he lonely, too? she wondered fleetingly. She didn’t at all like the thought of Jake being lonely. His eyes suddenly captured hers.

“Would you kindly get your cold toes inside the motor home?” he scolded her.

“Yours have to be just as cold.” But he hurried her inside ahead of him, and slammed the door, leaving all the cold outside. They kept getting in each other’s way, taking off their coats and gloves and putting everything away. Anne started running water in the sink to wash their dishes, but Jake nudged her aside, which was just as well. He’d bunched the blankets up and dropped them in a heap, and she would have to refold them all. Once a picture-straightener, always a picture-straightener, she thought idly, but that wasn’t at all what was really on her mind.

“Isn’t it funny, Jake,” she said casually, “how you turned out to be wind and I turned out to be stone? We both started out so very much the same. Your parents were together when you were small, but you were jostled about just as much as I was. Different schools, different houses, all that.” She hesitated, then brushed past him to put away the neatly folded blankets. For a moment, she hid her face from him, her fingers—for no reason at all—clutching at the soft wool. “It just seems strange how very different we turned out. You’ve never even had the first urge to stay in one place, have you?”

Her tone was light. Don’t worry, Jake, I don’t care. I would never try to change you. I just thought I would ask, one time, if you could conceivably ever ever ever ever settle down…

His fingers suddenly curled around her shoulders, turning her to face him. To Anne, his eyes had never seemed as silver, as liquid, as they did at that moment. “I never could seem to care where I hung my hat,” he said quietly, “and I doubt that I ever will, Anne. Do you want me to lie to you?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

“I’ve been on the move a long while.” His thumb gently traced the line of her cheekbone. “And lonely, many times. But there’s excitement and challenge and a freshness about new ideas and new people, new worlds. So much to know and share and see. A
place
to you means safety, honey, but I’ve never been able to really believe that. That you can feel
safe
simply because you stay in just one place. And I won’t make you a promise I can’t keep.”

His lips touched down, cool and firm on hers. Her hands fingered the soft flannel of his sleeve, then moved up to his neck, drawing him closer, drawing in his kiss. She had her answer. Jake knew he wouldn’t change. And Anne knew
she
wouldn’t. So Jake was a rolling stone who couldn’t change his ways, but she’d always known that, deep down. Yet her kiss was one of hunger, of loneliness, of wanting to blot out the answer he’d given her.

His lips brushed hers once more, then lifted. A fingertip gently traced the line of her lower lip, slow and sensual. Brooding eyes searched hers. “You’re so damned sure that matters.”

She groped for an answer as honest as his own words, but a sudden playful tap on her backside startled her. “To bed with you. And to make absolutely sure you go alone, I’m going to hit the road again.”

She blinked, then frowned. “Jake, you’ve already pushed yourself too hard. You started driving this morning at two o’clock.”

“Stopping on the road wastes too much time,” he said. “I couldn’t be less tired.” There was no talking to him. Minutes later, she heard him start the engine. Anne took down her coil of hair and started brushing it. With the lights off in back, she curled up in the chair, welcoming the darkness as her brush worked vigorously until her scalp tingled and her hair was silken-smooth. She couldn’t seem to get rid of the feeling that she’d disappointed him. How very easy it would have been to tell him that she didn’t care where they went or how often they moved as long as they were together. She might have said that to him when she was eighteen. At thirty-one, that kind of lie really wasn’t possible. She knew all too well what was really important to her.

An hour later, she crawled into the upper berth and fell asleep.

***

“Wake up, up there, sleepyhead. I have a present for you.

“Go away,” Anne mumbled. It was a night and a morning later, and between the two of them they’d driven almost the entire time. For more than half of the ride, they’d been on Highway 90, a road that apparently never ended, although Jake kept claiming it would eventually lead them to Idaho. The Silver Valley was obviously one of his pipe dreams. All she’d seen so far was Montana’s endless buttes and pale yellow grasses and infinite barren sky…and Jake’s quiet, very determined profile. She’d had enough of all of them.

The motor home slowed and then came to a stop. Anne paid no attention, snuggling the comforter over her head. A tiny swirl of cool air gusted under the covers at her feet. She’d never minded cold toes…but the soft lap of a smooth tongue on her instep was another matter.

She murmured a lecture on repression into the pillow. Strong teeth nibbled at her toes; she shifted her foot, appalled. Then two rough, distinctly male fingertips started walking up her heel, over her slim ankle and curved calf, to the back of her ticklish knee, chasing her nightgown up her thigh… Anne sleepily opened her eyes and peeked out from under the covers.

“One more inch and it’s Death Valley days for you,” she threatened groggily.

“The lady even wakes up sassy,” Jake marveled. “Which is the question.
Is
the lady awake?”

“No.” She pulled the comforter over her head again. “Where are we?”

“In Idaho. That means no more sleeping for you, honey.” Jake sounded sympathetic; his actions certainly weren’t. He tugged mercilessly at her comforter until it tumbled down to the carpet behind the driver’s seat. Anne tried to curl into a tight ball, but his fingers closed over one ankle, then the other. “Now, Anne. I didn’t want to do this the hard way—”

“Would you kindly have the courtesy to take a long, fast hike, like out into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!”

“Now, Anne,” he repeated, tugging at both ankles while she frantically pushed her nightgown back down, starting to laugh helplessly as she batted at his hands. It was like wrestling with a soft-pawed bear who just kept coming at her. He won, naturally, solely because of his brawn. In a confusion of nightgown and tousled hair swirling around her face and tickling fingers and Jake’s laughing eyes, she finally felt her toes touch the carpet, forsaking the wonderfully warm berth. “Boiling in oil would be too good—” she started to say.

But she didn’t finish. Something had happened to the laughter in his eyes, in the pressing of her body to his, in the kiss that came out of nowhere.

“You smell like sleep. All warm and snuggled up and cuddly,” he murmured. His palms were splayed on her bottom, drawing her deliberately against his thighs, raising her blood pressure unexpectedly. He’d made it more than clear he had no intention of making love to her on the road, and Anne was increasingly bewildered by his continued restraint. They had only two weeks…

She reached up to touch his rough-bearded cheek. “You look terrible,” she informed him sleepily. “Darn it, Jake, why are you driving yourself so hard?” Her lips followed in the wake of her hand, until she snuggled closer for a simple, unavoidable, unexplainable, delicious hug. His chamois shirt was soft and his body warm, and when his arms wrapped around her she felt sleepy all over again, defenseless, not caring… It was far too early in the morning to think about principles and problems.

Jake’s thighs tightened responsively against her softer ones. His fingers threaded back her hair as he dipped down to kiss her just behind her ear. “Don’t you want to see Idaho?” he questioned.

“No.”

“Don’t you want to see your present? Actually, there are two.”

“No.”

In slow motion, his hands weaved down under her hair. His fingers, cloaked by the heavy tresses, moved over her shoulders, then down her spine, then lower to cup her bottom again, molding the shape of him to her own shape. Her pulse was beating erratically. She wanted to sing. She was weary of traveling and weary of worrying, and undoubtedly when she really woke up, her head would overrule all the base impulses that were racing through her bloodstream. She could deal with that later. Right now, the silver eyes that captured hers promised that Jake was very much of like mind, full of base, unprincipled, degenerate thoughts.

“Although,” he said gently, “we are parked on the edge of a cliff.”

“That’s nice.” But unwillingly she shifted her eyes away from him to the window. The nose of the motor home really did seem to be hanging in midair. At least all she could see was a terrifying drop below to a tree-studded valley where pines of gold and green reached valiantly for the sky.
Gold pines?
Her heart flipped over, in an entirely different realm. “What happened to the grassy plains?”

“They turned into Idaho.”

“Pines are supposed to stay green all year, not turn gold like that.”

“Idaho pines don’t follow the rules,” he agreed. “It’s also already warm outside. Not quite as warm as inside, I’ll grant you…” He drew away from her with a distinctly crooked smile. “But I’m beginning to have the feeling this day could turn out very warm indeed.”

He didn’t seem to be talking about the weather. As Jake went back to the driver’s seat, Anne groped for clothes and padded back to the bathroom, feeling curiously light-headed. She felt less so when he’d backed away from the cliff and was safely on the highway again. She washed and drew on underthings, occasionally peeking out the curtained window in back.

In the Bighorns, there had been snow. How strange to look out and see mountains here that looked even taller, yet totally different. These spiky peaks were tall and skinny and steep, too steep for a house to be set anywhere, too steep for any other road to have been built, and there were no other roads that she could see. Just the one highway. And the crazy gold pines…there had to be millions of them, all catching the warm sunlight’s glint and shimmer. Clouds lay right
on the road, like wisps of cotton candy. They were driving so high up she could feel her ears pop…