Warrior's Embrace (13 page)

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Jane, you’re not going to believe this..

“Virginia?... Shoot, do you know what time it
is?... Virginia?... Why are you laughing?”

“You’re not going to believe this, Jane.”

“You’ve already said that. What? What am I
not going to believe?”

“I’m going to Arizona with Bolton.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“See. I knew you wouldn’t. I know it’s crazy,
I know I’m insane. Talk me out of it, Jane.”

“What the heck? You need a break. You might
as well take it with some great-looking guy who will throw you over
his shoulder and ride off into the sunset to his tepee or wickiup
or whatever they call it.”

“Good grief.”

“Well, you called for my blessing, didn’t
you? You got it... As long as you don’t get carried away and decide
to stay. You’re not going to do that, are you, Virginia?”

What was she going to do? She was foolish
even to be considering seeing Bolton again. Wasn’t one tragic
parting enough for them?

“No. I’m not going to get carried away, Jane.
My life is here.”

“Good, as long as you know that. ‘Bye now,
I’m going back to sleep.”

“Jane... wait. About lunch tomorrow. I’m not
sure I’ll have time... I have an annual checkup, and then all that
packing... and I’ll have to call Candace and tell her.”

“If you think I’m letting you off the hook,
you’re mistaken. I’ll see you at the Lunch Bunch at twelve sharp,
and I expect to hear every salacious detail of the formidable
Apache warrior’s phone call. What did he
say
to you,
Virginia? I’ve never heard you like this.”

Virginia laughed. “Good night, Jane.”

He’d said he loved her. Did she dare believe
that love was enough?

o0o

For the next two days Virginia alternated
between elation and doubt. She packed and unpacked her bags three
times. She called Jane so much that even she got a little edgy.

“For Pete’s sake, Virginia. If he can turn
you upside down long distance, what will you be like when he
arrives? Maybe you ought to go trekking in the tundra or fishing in
Finland instead of mating in the mountains.”

“Good grief.”

“Precisely.”

At fifteen till five Virginia was sitting on
the front porch swing dressed in black jeans and a black cotton
turtleneck, straining her eyes for the sight of his car on the
driveway. Her bags were waiting just inside the door.

At ten till she decided she looked like a
foolish, eager older woman lying in wait for a young handsome
lover, so she grabbed her bags and raced up the stairs to stow them
in the closet. Then she caught sight of herself in the full-length
mirror.

“I look like an old crow,” she said, and
began to yank off her black garb. She grabbed a pair of blue jeans,
a white blouse, and a bright red cotton pullover.

What if he came and found her upstairs in her
underwear. He’d think she had planned it that way. She dressed in
such a hurry, she buttoned her blouse wrong and had to start over
three times. By the time she had finished, she was a nervous
wreck.

The grandfather clock in the downstairs
hallway chimed the hours. Five o’clock.

She raced back down the stairs and sat at the
piano. “Clair de Lune” always soothed her. Bolton would probably be
ringing her bell before she got through the first measure.

She played the entire piece twice, and he was
nowhere in sight. It wasn’t like him to be late. Virginia looked
out all the windows, then went onto the front porch and shaded her
eyes to see down the driveway. There was nothing in sight, no car,
no Apache warrior, not even a speck of dust.

She called down to the security station at
her front gates.

“I’m expecting Bolton Gray Wolf. Has he
checked in yet?”

“No, ma’am. He hasn’t.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Miss Virginia, there hasn’t been a soul come
by here all afternoon.”

She started to tell Jim to buzz her the
minute he arrived, then she changed her mind. If Bolton Gray Wolf
had stood her up, she didn’t want anybody thinking she was sitting
up in her fancy house waiting to be buzzed—not even Jim, who had
been known to fight with people who dared to breathe a harmful word
about the woman who had given him a job after he was forced to
retire from the police force in disgrace. Falsely accused of taking
kickbacks from drug dealers, he’d not only been in disgrace but in
near poverty when Virginia gave him a job.

He must have mistaken her silence for
censure.

“I’d sure tell you if there had,” he
said.

“I don’t doubt you for a minute, Jim. It’s
just me. You know how anxious I get when I’m in the middle of a
book.”

“No problem, Miss Virginia. You want me to
buzz when he comes?”

Virginia glanced at her watch.
Five-thirty.

“No, that’s all right, Jim.”

Virginia went into the kitchen and made
herself a cup of hot tea. She thought of calling Jane, but what
would she say? I’ve been jilted?

“Do a reality check, Virginia,” she scolded
herself. Obviously Bolton had been doing his arithmetic. When he
was a fit and trim sixty, she’d be seventy-three. Geritol and
wheelchairs. Hot-water bottles and false teeth.

She tossed the tea down the drain and went to
the barn to saddle her horse. She wasn’t about to be caught waiting
around the house like some lovesick puppy when Bolton Gray Wolf
came.

If he came.

The storm came up unexpectedly. It crashed
around the twin-engine Baron with such force, Bolton thought he was
going to be sucked into the Grand Canyon. If the weather report had
been accurate, he would never have taken his plane up, but now that
he was airborne there was nothing he could do except fly through
the storm.

Heavy winds shook the plane and flashes of
lightning illuminated the clouds. In spite of the danger, Bolton
was vividly aware of the awesome beauty of the storm. With his
senses finely tuned for the slightest change in his instrument
panel, he felt every breath of the wind, saw every bolt of light
that split the darkening sky. He knew the earth was there below
him, but it was totally obscured. He was in a dark cocoon high
above the clouds with nothing to connect him to the earth except
his instruments, his radio, and his own thoughts.

High in the sky with the unseen canyon
waiting to claim him if he made a fatal mistake and the erratic
lightning intent on catching him unaware, he understood love in a
way that he never could have on earth. Virginia was a beacon of
light in his soul. She was a talisman he clung to, a mantra he
chanted, a prayer he whispered. She was his heartbeat, his
lifeblood, his breath.

Without her, he would welcome the oblivion of
the yawning darkness below.

He was going to be late getting to her, so
very late. As soon as he could set the Baron down he’d call
her.

Suddenly he burst out of the storm into a sky
so sundrenched, the light was blinding. He made radio contact with
the airport, then landed in heavy crosswinds. With his goggles
pushed to the top of his head and his flight jacket flapping behind
him, he raced to the nearest telephone.

No answer. He tried again and again, but
Virginia never came on the line. Nor did her answering service pick
up. She must have disconnected it. She’d said she often did that
when she was on deadline.

He tried her cell phone, but she didn’t
answer that either.

Bolton fought against impatience, fought
against the urge to jump into his plane and take off for
Mississippi. First his plane had to be serviced and gassed, then he
had to check the weather report. Getting to her in one piece was
more important than getting to her quickly.

“Love worth having is worth waiting for,” his
father had always said.

Bolton smiled. He would have Virginia, even
if he had to wait a lifetime.

o0o

Virginia knew the trails on her farm, even in
the dark. The sun had long ago set, and the moonlight was not yet
bright enough to penetrate the thick branches of oak and hickory
and black walnut trees that formed a deep red and gold canopy
overhead.

She trotted along the path, blocking her mind
of everything except the narrow trail that wound through the
trees.

“Ride,” she told herself. “Just ride.”

Up ahead the trees thinned out into a wide
expanse of pasture. The Arabian whinnied softly, and Virginia
leaned over to rub his neck.

“There’s nothing to get spooky about. It’s
just you and me, baby.”

What if she was wrong? What if someone was
lying in wait for her, someone intent on robbery or worse? She’d
been foolish to ride at night without letting Jim know.

She cleared the trees, and that’s when she
saw it—the white Arabian standing atop the hill. There was no
mistaking the gleaming white coat, the regal tilt of the neck and
head. She squinted, her eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness.
On the horse was a rider, a tall, proud man with dark hair blowing
in the wind.

She had to be hallucinating. Only a woman as
lovesick as she would conjure up the man who had left her sitting
in an empty house with her bags packed.

Suddenly the horse and rider went into
motion, racing down the hill in a movement so fluid, so graceful
that Virginia knew she was not dreaming. Only an Apache would ride
like that. Only Bolton Gray Wolf.

Her hands tightened on the reins as she
poised to flee. But even if she fled, she could never outride
Bolton, never outrace her magnificent warrior.

Hooves pounded the ground, their rhythm as
insistent as drumbeats. Closer and closer he came. The moon that
had been pale and hidden made a dazzling appearance, lighting the
landscape as if it were a stage.

Bolton wore nothing except buckskins and
moccasins. His eyes glittered, his hair blew in the wind, and his
chest was gloriously, deliciously naked.

In a whirlwind of scent and sight and sound,
he wrapped an arm around her waist and plucked her off her horse.
Then with a sharp command in Athabascan, he raced off with her
Arabian galloping along behind.

She didn’t ask where he was taking her or why
he was late. She didn’t question his recent whereabouts or his
intentions. Nothing mattered, nothing at all except being in his
arms and feeling his heart pounding against her back.

Her stables came into view. He guided the
horses inside, then slid Virginia into his arms and spread her on
the hay. Without speaking he bent over her and stripped away her
clothes. She didn’t move, didn’t question, didn’t protest.

Quickly he shed his buckskins, then he stood
over her, speaking in soft and rapid Athabascan.

She didn’t know the words, but she understood
the meaning. Bolton was reclaiming what was his.

Everything she’d believed went up in smoke.
Love had no boundaries, love knew no age, love turned problems into
paper dragons. Virginia abandoned herself and surrendered to
him.

He knew her as no man ever had, touched her
as no man ever could. He branded her inside and out, claimed her
for his own, and completely ruined her for any other man.

“You don’t need to take me back to your
tribal lands; you brought them with you,” she whispered. “You
brought the wind and the rain, the raging rivers and the untamed
mountains, the moon and the sun and the stars.”

Surrounded by the sweet smells of hay and the
rich smells of earth, Bolton wrapped Virginia in his arms and held
her close.

“That was incredible,” she whispered.

“It’s only the beginning, Virginia.”

o0o

They flew out in the early morning, west with
the sun at their backs.

“This is not a commitment, Bolton,” Virginia
told him as the Baron landed in Arizona.

“I understand.”

He loaded their gear into his Jeep and headed
into the White Mountains.

“Will your family be at your house when we
arrive?”

“No.”

“Good. I’m sorry, Bolton. I didn’t mean that
the way it sounded. I just think meeting your family is
premature.”

“You don’t have to meet them at all,
Virginia. This is not about family... yours or mine. It’s about you
and me. It’s about our future.”

How could she argue when she was surrounded
by trees so old, they knew the secrets of the earth and mountains
so timeless, they understood eternity? She leaned her head against
the seat and took a deep breath.

“Everything else seems petty compared to
this,” she said, sweeping her hand around to encompass the
view.

Bolton smiled. It was exactly the kind of
beginning he had hoped for. No one could be unaffected by the view,
particularly a writer. He’d counted on Virginia’s keen mind to
understand man’s place in nature. The next step was counting on her
heart.

“My home,” he said, pointing out the rustic
two-story house of wood and glass and stone that seemed to blend in
with the mountains. There was not another house as far as the eye
could see. There was nothing except sky and sun—blood-red as it
sought a hiding place in the western slopes—mountain and
forest.

“Oh, Bolton... It’s enchanting.”

“I plan to make it that way for you.
Always.”

They slept that night cuddled together under
a down comforter, hands linked. And when morning sun poured through
the skylight, they made slow, exquisite love, then packed their
camping gear and headed into the mountains.

“I feel like I’m playing hooky,” Virginia
said. “I’ve never just vanished. What if somebody needs to reach
us?”

The spot he had chosen as a campsite was a
leafy glade high in the mountains, beyond the reach of cell phones,
protected by evergreens so thick, they could barely see the sky. In
the lee of the rocks was a tepee, built in the way of his
ancestors.