Amanda (13 page)

Since the guys replied only with intent looks, she set out briskly, breathing in honeysuckle-scented afternoon air that was not
quite
hot yet here at the end
of May, but showed definite promise of heat to come. There was a nice breeze, just enough to stir the air, and the sunshine was very bright. Amanda had opted not to wear sunglasses, primarily because she knew most of her walk would take place in the woods, so she squinted a bit until reaching the shade of the towering hardwood trees that climbed the northwest mountain.

She found the trail easily since it was heavily marked by the passage of many hooves over years. It wound among the trees, now and then crossed by some kind of barrier Amanda had to go around, such as a tangle of fallen trees or other manmade jumps. She went on, amused to find that the dogs had apparently divided the duty; while one remained always no more than a couple of feet away from her, the other would dash off in a burst of energy, vanishing from sight only to reappear a few minutes later and take his place as escort.

Amanda wondered what they thought they were protecting her from, but shrugged off the thought.

The ascent was gradual, so much so that she was surprised upon reaching a rocky overlook to find out how high she’d climbed. Through a gap in the trees, she could look down on the very end of the rear wing of the house and a bit of the garden, and on a slice of green pasture dotted with grazing horses and, beyond that, the first of the four barns in the distance.

She could also see …

Amanda blinked, then narrowed her gaze and looked harder. She could, more clearly now, make out two people down in the garden. From any other angle they probably would have been hidden from prying eyes, since they were in a small but lush bower formed by tall hedges and a long trellis covered with red and white roses. The grass was probably soft there.

At least Amanda hoped so, for their sake, because it was fairly obvious even from this distance what they were doing.

“My, my,” she said to one of the dogs conversationally. “I guess when the cat’s away, the mice
do
play. I have a feeling Jesse would frown on that being done in his garden. Especially in broad daylight.”

And who would have thought it of Kate? It had to be her; that gleaming black hair, though tumbled about her shoulders in a
most
uncharacteristic disarray, looked somehow regal even from here, besides, other than herself, Amanda had seen no other woman on the place with coal-black hair.

“Still waters,” Amanda confided to her canine companion. “You just never know about people.” She felt a little amused and inexplicably cheerful.

Feeling only mildly guilty for not instantly turning away (she couldn’t, after all, see anything of real importance, she assured herself), Amanda considered the man with Kate. The man who was neither dark nor hawklike, she was sure. He was, in fact, quite obviously blond. And since his broad shoulders were not currently covered by a shirt, it was easy to see he was nicely tanned.

Granted, Amanda certainly hadn’t seen everyone at Glory yet, but still …

“Five will get you ten,” she told the dog, “I know who that is. And aren’t they the sly ones; there wasn’t a sign of it the other day. Now why do you suppose Kate’s carrying on secretly with one of the trainers? She’s old enough to do what she wants, and I doubt very much Jesse would care who she slept with. Is she protecting her reputation, do you suppose?”

The dog—Gacy; she could tell them apart now— appeared to hang upon her every word with flattering interest, but offered no speculation of his own. A moment
later, Bundy returned and they switched off, with Gacy dashing away to explore a briar thicket farther up the trail. Bundy sat down near Amanda and looked at her quizzically.

“If you come late,” Amanda told him severely, “you just have to miss things.” She laughed at herself a little and turned away from the vantage point, leaving Kate and her lover once more unobserved in their garden hideaway.

A higher overlook would no doubt allow her to see most of Glory spread out below; Amanda made up her mind to keep walking until she found such a place. Not that she wanted to spy on Kate and Ben—she just wanted to look at Glory from a more distant and possibly detached viewpoint.

She continued to climb a trail that was growing gradually steeper, pausing occasionally to catch her breath and reflect wryly on city living that dulled the senses and left legs overly dependent on wheels in order to get around.

That thought had barely crossed her mind when Amanda realized she and the dogs were no longer alone on the trail. She heard the sound of approaching hooves and felt the vibration under her feet long before she saw the horses, and that gave her ample time to get well off the trail. She was a good twenty-five or thirty feet away, uphill since she’d climbed, when three horses galloped past. The riders, vulnerable human heads protected by crash helmets, crouched in the stirrups, leaning forward as the horses scaled the steep trail.

Watching them unnoticed from her place above, Amanda felt only a mild, dispassionate interest. The riders were obviously expert; two young women and a young man, one of the women leading on a gray horse while the other two followed on bay horses. Absorbed
human faces, and powerful muscles moving under glossy equine coats. The thuds of hooves and snorts of effort and the faint jingle of metal and the creak of leather.

Then, just as the horses disappeared around a bend in the trail, the breeze shifted and Amanda caught the warm, faintly musty scents of horses and sweat and leather. Her stomach knotted painfully and dizziness swept over her so swiftly that she swayed on her feet and had to clutch a sapling to maintain her balance. She lifted a shaking hand to wipe cold perspiration from her upper lip, and her breathing seemed very loud in her ears.

“it’s getting worse,” she murmured, finding the realization both bewildering and threatening.

It hadn’t been so bad at first, but by her third day at Glory, even a brief wayward breeze from the stables or pastures was enough to leave her feeling sick and shaken. And last night she’d awakened from a nightmare she couldn’t remember except to know that everything had smelled of horses and she had been terrified.

She didn’t know what it meant, only that these odd experiences—her reaction to horses and the nightmare —both left upsetting feelings of panic and nausea lingering in her, and sometimes for hours afterward she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to run, to get away before …

Before what? Amanda didn’t know, any more than she knew where the awful fear of horses came from. If she had ever fallen from a horse or been otherwise hurt because of one, she didn’t remember it—despite the lie she had told Jesse and the others. But as far back as she could clearly remember, there was in her a fear of the animals not aroused by the sight or nearness of them—but by their scent.

She tried to shake off the sensations now, but that proved impossible. The breeze had carried the smell of horse away once more, yet she was still shivering.

“Never mind looking down on Glory,” she told both dogs, hearing the tremor in her voice. Finding a nice vantage point could be left for another day. She fumbled for the map and studied it, searching for a path—any path—that would take her away from the riding trails and eventually back to the house. Not a minute later, with both clearly anxious dogs sticking close to her now, Amanda changed direction and began heading downhill once again.

“we’re crazy,” Kate said. “Down in the grass like a couple of teenagers … Anyone could find us here, you know that, don’t you?”

“No one’s going to find us here,” Ben said. “The gardeners are finished for the day, Maggie’s in the house, and you said Amanda went for a walk. All the riders and other trainers’ll be out for at least another hour, Sully’s with the blacksmith in barn one, and Jesse’s gone until evening. Besides—we’re safer here than We’ve been some other places.”

“it’s indecent. And I’ll never get the grass stains out of this blouse,” Kate said, but not as if either point troubled her much. She stretched languidly, her naked breasts lifting and her stomach hollowing below her ribs, and Ben watched her with pure enjoyment.

“you’re beautiful, Katie.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said instantly.

“I like it,” he said.

“I don’t.”

As usual, they’d only partially undressed. Ben was still wearing his boots and though he’d pulled his jeans back up, they remained unfastened. His shirt, at least
two of its buttons now missing, was flung across an ornamental stone bench a few feet away from them. As for Kate, she had pushed her skirt back down over her thighs but her blouse was still open.

She wasn’t wearing panties or a bra, and when Ben had realized that, he hadn’t been able to find a secluded corner of the garden fast enough. He hadn’t even thought about how close to the house they were —closer than ever before—and he didn’t give a damn now that he did think about it.

This little arbor was mostly shaded in the afternoon, but there was just enough sunlight to dapple the ground and paint Kate’s golden flesh with enticing shadows. He loved to look at her. He only wished that they had the time and a place where he could see her completely naked and look his fill.

A bed would be nice. All night in a bed would be nicer. Waking up to Kate, Ben thought, would be nicest of all. He wondered how she would respond to him then, drowsy, her lithe body quiet with sleep. And, wondering, he was suddenly possessed by the desire to make it happen.

But how? How, when Kate rationed their time together in minutes?

“Why can’t we sleep together?” he heard himself ask.

“I asked you to come to the house,” she reminded him. “You refused.”

“You wouldn’t have let me stay all night.” Her silence gave assent.

“I have a bed, you know,” Ben stated. “A perfectly good bed in a nice, quiet apartment. Why haven’t we ever spent the night there?”

“I’m too old to be sneaking back home at dawn,” Kate told him with a touch of asperity. She drew her
blouse closed, then reached up a hand to her hair and instantly frowned. “What in the world—”

Ben chuckled and leaned over to kiss her. “Sorry about that, but I love your hair down. I took the pins out because I wanted to watch it move while you were on top.”

Her hair had probably moved a lot while she’d been on top, Kate reflected, since she had been extremely … active. To her astonishment, she felt her cheeks warm; she had thought herself long past the age of embarrassment, especially with any man, and she had certainly never been fazed by anything she had said or done with Ben—but lately he seemed to have acquired the knack of making her feel self-conscious.

“Dammit,” she murmured, sitting up as she tried to finger-comb her hair into some semblance of order. “You know I don’t have a brush with me. And what Maggie will think—”

“She isn’t your nurse anymore, Kate, and hasn’t been for years.” Ben pulled her gently back down beside him and slid long fingers into her loosened hair with obvious pleasure.

She told herself she should protest again, or move. That was it—she had to move, to get up and straighten her clothing and leave briskly with a casual farewell because that was the way it was between them.

But she didn’t want to move. Not now. Not yet. It felt marvelous, his hands on her, that soothing yet peculiarly arousing touch against her scalp, and Kate wished she could lie here all day. He bared her breasts again, brushing the material of her blouse aside and using that hand to slowly stroke and fondle while his mouth took hers again and again in kisses so deep she felt consumed by them.

There was always a moment, when desire for him first surged inside her, that Kate felt strangely uncertain.
It had never happened to her with other men, this sense of vulnerability that was a kind of ghostly panic, and with Ben it never lasted long enough for her to try to understand it. But every time she became aware of it, she was unnerved enough to think,
This is the last time.

Until the next time.

“My turn,” he murmured against her lips, “to do all the work.” He guided her arms so that they lay stretched out on the grass above her head. “Don’t move. Just feel.”

Kate felt, and vulnerability vanished as if it had never been. Desire, sharp and hungry, coursed inside her, carrying all else before it.

She moaned when he began to rub his face slowly back and forth against her breasts, the contrasting sensations of his soft lips and the very faint stubble of his afternoon beard driving her mad. Eyes closed, stretched out half naked on the grass like some mindlessly willing pagan sacrifice, Kate gave herself over to him completely.

He knew her well. Skillful fingers probed and stroked, unerringly finding her body’s most rawly sensual places—particularly the ones only a lover generous enough to pay attention would ever discover. He knew that if he brushed his lips just under her left ear, her whole body would shiver in pleasure. He knew that the silky flesh on the insides of her elbows was exquisitely sensitive, like the lower curve of each breast, and all around her navel.

He knew that if he caught her lower lip gently between his teeth she would make a throaty little sound of need, and if he touched his tongue to the tiny birthmark just beneath her left breast she would gasp, and if he glided fingertips down her spine to its base she would moan and arch her back.

Ben knew all those things, and he used all the knowledge to arouse Kate until she was frantic for him. Then he went further, teasing in a way he’d never done before, prolonging each caress until she was writhing in need.

When he finally gave in to her husky pleas and settled himself between her trembling thighs, Ben had held himself on the fine edge for so long that his own need made him wild and a little rough. Their passion was always explosive, but this time it was something fierce and primitive.

Kate recognized the difference, even though she didn’t think lucidly about it; her body was utterly caught up in sensation and her mind was buffeted as if from the force of a gale. The scent of roses was heavy in the air and she could hear birds chirping, and when her release finally came she cried out incoherently, forgetting to mute the sound. Ben cried out as well, his powerful body shuddering in pleasure, and Kate clung to him with a sudden alarmed sense of having lost all control of the situation—and of herself.