Temptation Road (2 page)

*

Around dawn, after she’d tossed and turned
unable to sleep, Reagan wrapped herself in her green silk robe and
went down the creaky stairs to sit on the front porch swing. As she
settled into the faded flowered cushions her actions over the past
days seemed like madness to her suddenly. She’d left the known
world behind, uprooted her life, and traveled to a remote mountain
village on nothing more than a whim. She pictured Dody and the
mysterious man who’d stood silently above her as she cried, he was
tall and young and even at a distance she could see that he was
disturbingly handsome. When he’d looked up at Reagan from the
moonlit patch of grass it ignited a need in her that she’d denied
for too long.

At that moment, in the middle of the night,
in the middle of nowhere, in a place where she knew only the names
of a woman and her daughter, she needed to hear Sean’s voice for
better or worse. To know for certain in her heart of hearts that
she could still inspire passion in a man. Not just the gilded
reverence from afar that she received as the DeLuca girl, but as
herself, Rae, the girl who had everything. Everything except what
she wanted most, which was to love and be loved in equal
measure.

She sighed and rested her head in her hands;
the silky robe fell open and her long hair brushed the tops of her
thighs. A small sound caught her ear and she looked up into the
face of the mysterious man from the lawn. He was quietly watching
her from the shadows, his long body leaned against the porch rail.
They both moved at the same time, she sprang from the swing toward
the front door and his foot landed on the porch steps. They bumped
into one another and stopped inches apart.

The rising sun made patterns on their faces
and her heart beat like a wild caged bird in her chest, but she
couldn’t turn away. His face was astonishingly handsome, with huge
dark eyes that were so deeply blue they almost seemed black. His
hair was nearly to his shoulders and it was sun-streaked and
carelessly tousled as if his beauty didn’t matter to him. He had an
intense brooding look which his mouth softened, it was wide and it
looked soft and… tempting. He was so splendid, with fine chiseled
features and so much rugged, untamed masculinity that she pictured
him stretched out across the bed in her upstairs room. It was all
she could do not to take his hand and place it over her wayward
heart then move it down her needful body and because she could
imagine the intimacies they would share, her face burned in the dim
light.

His hand went to her cheek and his fingertips
traced her skin, moving over her lips and down to caress her
smooth, graceful neck. On impulse, she stood on tiptoe and pressed
her lips to his. She melted into him as he kissed her deeply and
pulled her body hard against his, tangling a hand in her hair while
the other held her waist. She heard a feral noise and when she knew
that it had come from her own throat, she blushed all the more, but
she was beyond caring. His mouth consumed hers and her hands rested
for only a moment on the hard muscles of his chest, then moved
under his shirt to feel his burning skin.

The kiss went on and on and she knew she had
never experienced such an immediate sensation of not only raw
passion and desire, but connection with a man. His very smell was
intoxicating and drew her to him, her mind flashed with scenes she
couldn’t quite hold onto and she thought she heard his deeply
melodic voice whisper, “mine.”

She was sure he must feel it too, that sense
of discovering your other half, of stumbling blindly in the
darkness only to bump into someone who was meant to be the truest
love of your life.

At last he broke their kiss and let his
fevered cheek rest against hers. His hands tenderly moved over her
back and circled her small waist holding her body firmly to his, as
if he refused to let her go.

She let her hands discover the elegant planes
of his face and he kissed the tips of her fingers when they
lingered on his lips. Her eyes searched his, desperate to know if
he was consumed with the same life-altering emotions that had her
heart and mind reeling. In the hazy half-light and shadow she
couldn’t be sure if they registered any feeling at all. With
trembling voice she whispered, “Who are you?” and although she
waited, he didn’t say a word. So she closed her eyes and drew a
long, deep breath, then went inside, and up the stairs to her room,
all alone.

*

When she woke after only a few hours of
restless sleep, she dressed quickly in jeans, boots, a loose knit
pullover and parka. She worked her thick hair into two braids that
hung over her shoulders, then she drove up Temptation Road to find
the house she couldn’t live without. It was as wondrous as she’d
imagined, just long neglected and a little down on its luck,
kind of like me,
she thought and smiled. It loomed above her
as she stood at the end of a crooked brick walkway and it was most
assuredly a fantastical Victorian whimsy lost in the woods. The
paint had faded but the house was still awe-inspiring with turrets
and gables and gingerbread trim and latticework and lighting rods
with milky glass balls for decoration as they pointed skyward from
a multitude of roof peeks.

She walked to the porch along a path covered
with pine needles and up a broad set of wooden steps that were
surprisingly sound. The porch was what all front porches should be,
wide and sweeping around the sides and curling out into fanciful
circular open-air seating areas at the corners of the house. Wicker
chairs, tables, plant stands, wide low rockers and two porch swings
were scattered about, stolidly waiting. They begged for a fresh
coat of paint and cushions, but otherwise they were sturdy and it
was all Rae could do not to sink into a chair and stare out at the
majestic mountains and forest that seemed to cradle the house and
its wide patches of lawn and arbor and riotous garden.

The front door was tall and solid with an
extravagantly romantic stained-glass window, it depicted a man and
a woman caught in a passionate embrace surrounded by an audience of
animals from the forest that loomed in the intricate background.
The door was locked tight so she moved from window to window trying
to get a glimpse of the interior. The glass panes were filmy,
coated with soot and dust on the inside and so whatever was within
was hidden from her.

As she turned to retrace her steps back down
the path she stopped in her tracks, it was as if every creature
from the panel of stained-glass had come to life around her. There
among the pine needles were red and grey foxes, raccoons,
squirrels, possums, and all manner of birds of every size and
color. A family of White-tailed deer wandered close to her and at
the edge of the forest she glimpsed the slanted eyes of a bobcat
and from deep in the woods she heard the familiar mewling cry of a
bear.

*

Reagan walked up and down the brick-paved
main street when she drove back to town, stopping first at the
grocery store looking for Miss Bess, only to be told that the old
woman was a late sleeper and to stop by after lunch. She wandered
through the drugstore and the tiny used book stall and then a store
selling gardening supplies.

In a one room shop filled with bear skin rugs
she spoke to man who must have been six feet nine inches tall. His
name was Cyrus and he proudly told Reagan that he was a full-blood
Cherokee Indian, then he turned so she could see his jet-black hair
that hung in a heavy braid all the way to his rattlesnake belt.

“It’s a dent in destiny, that piece of earth
and the fortuitous house that belongs on it, the good Mary’s
house,” he said when she asked him if he was familiar with the
property she was hoping to own. His voice was low and deep like the
growl of the animals whose hides littered the floor and hung on the
walls all around him. “If you are meant for the house then you are
charmed,” he said as he walked to a wall and ran his hand over the
fur of a large black bear skin. “These bears were not good hearted
creatures; my beliefs would never lead me to destroy an animal
living at peace with the Earth. Take care near the woods and the
lonely places, that’s where they wait.”

“Curiouser and curiouser!”
Reagan
thought as the door closed behind her, its little bell ringing as
she left the rug shop. She felt a lot like Alice who had fallen
through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole and uttered
those very words.

“Hey there!” Dody called to her from just up
the street, she waved and motioned for Reagan to join her. “Great
heavens whose complexion could possibly look as good yours? Out in
the bright light of day no less, and I bet you don’t have a stitch
of makeup on, either!” she held Reagan at arm’s length to study
her, then hugged her tightly as if they were old friends.

Reagan let Dody hug her and she lightly
hugged her back, because she didn’t know what else to do and she
was lonely and anyone who said “stitch of makeup” had to be sweet
and harmless.

“Are you hungry?” Dody asked, already holding
her hand and leading her toward the café/bar at the end of the
street. “My little girl’s in school right now and I don’t expect
nobody at the Inn today, so how about we get us a bite to eat? This
is the only waterin’ hole for miles around and it can get a little
rough at night but at lunch time they serve a good grilled cheese
sandwich and of course fried snake, but really it’s just chicken
nuggets so don’t faint. If we’re lucky Larissa will be working,”
Dody said all in a rush as they scooted into a vinyl covered booth.
There was an old-fashioned jukebox against the back wall and Dody
excused herself and dropped a few coins in it.

“My blood bleeds love red, my soul is wide
open,”
an achingly smooth country voice sang, and Reagan
remembered hearing the Brandon Rhyder song on the radio the day
before. It was called “Love Red” and as it played she had been
wishing for just such a love as she drove away from her past and
into her future.

“Well here’s my star employee playing the
jukebox in the middle of the day so that I had to get Quint a key
to a room myself,” a tall, good-looking man, one of a pair who’d
just walked through the door, said to Dody. He caught her arm as
she passed by and leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth.

“Stop it now, Wade! Come meet our star guest
and I do mean star. Hey there, Quint! I didn’t know you’d be around
town this week. Reagan this is my boss Wade Campion and his
friend…” she said as the second man stood still and looked
surprised for a moment when he saw Reagan.

She too, felt her heart begin to hammer as
she recognized the chiseled face of the man she’d kissed on the
porch that morning as the sun was rising. He must have cut his hair
she thought sadly, as he slid into the booth next to her, smiling
and holding out his hand.

“I’m Quinton,” he said and kissed her hand,
never letting his eyes leave hers, “and you are the legendary
Reagan Hart. The girl who stole
my
heart a long time ago,
but I guess you hear that all the time.”

“It’s Rae,” she said, caught up in his dark
blue velvet eyes, “I go by Rae when I’m just being myself… which I
am right now… and intend to be from now on… so you cut off all your
wonderful hair?”

“Seriously?” he asked and turned to smirk at
Dody and Wade who had settled in across from them, then he turned
back to Rae and laughed, “You met Fletcher? If you tell me he spoke
to you that would be classic, although I suppose if a man chooses
to speak after twenty years it should be to a beautiful and famous
woman. But he didn’t, did he? I’ll bet my long suffering big
brother held fast to his ‘strong silent type’ image even when he
was face to face with his heart’s desire.”

She could see the subtle differences then,
the man sitting next to her was probably a few years younger and
less strikingly handsome than her mystery man and although her
heart had beat at first, its wild thumping had slowed. They were
brothers and the one she had not met formally but had kissed as he
kissed her back was Fletcher and he couldn’t talk, and his brother
Quint was making a joke about it.

“Your brother can’t speak and you find that
amusing?” she said, gathering her purse and giving him a venomous
look that caused him to stand hurriedly and let her out of the
booth. “You’re rude and maybe just a bit arrogant and obviously not
a very loyal family member. I have to tell you,” she said, bending
toward him so that he and Wade both got an eyeful of her breasts in
her Agent Provocateur bra when the neckline of her blouse gaped
open, “I find that highly detestable in a man.”

*

It began to rain and the wind blew crazily as
she walked back to the grocery store looking for Miss Bess, she dug
around in her purse trying to find her foldable umbrella. Dody
stood at the door of the Snakebite and called after her when she
stormed out of the café but Rae didn’t turn around. She wasn’t
exactly sure what had pissed her off so badly, Quint’s easy smile
and kissing her hand like he was James Bond or some sort of
pretentious jackass. Or his disregard for his mute brother, or the
look in his eye that said “I’ll have you in bed before you know
what hit you.” He just rubbed her the wrong way she decided, and
for some inexplicable reason she felt a deeper connection to his
brother whom she had only seen twice, and kissed once and had never
spoken a word to.

*

Miss Bess Lamar sat in a hickory wood rocking
chair in the over-stuffed grocery store that her son owned. She was
a paper-thin bird-like woman who rocked and hummed while she worked
the New York Times crossword puzzle. She spat tobacco juice into an
empty tuna-fish can with deadly precision. Her teeth rested next to
her in a glass of water on a small table. She looked up and saw Rae
looking at the teeth and said, “Damn thirstiest teeth I ever owned,
they’re always in that glass!” and she laughed to beat the band.
“What makes a movie star like you think you can just waltz in here
and buy up that little patch of magic up on Temptation Road,
anyhow?”