Iris Johansen (13 page)

His fingers traced the curve of her brow. “It was those doe eyes,” he growled, his voice again like sandpaper velvet and a fierce frown darkening his
face. “That night you saw Sylvia Waterman’s tiger-skin coat, you looked like Bambi after his mother was shot. I couldn’t take it.” He glared at her accusingly. “And then you
cried
.”

“You did all this just because I cried?” Janna asked blankly, with a gesture that encompassed both the room and the totality of his actions.

“I told you that I couldn’t take it,” he grated out, squaring his jaw belligerently. “I’m not used to just standing by and doing nothing when I want something fixed. It frustrated the hell out of me to know I couldn’t heal your pain no matter what I did.” He shrugged helplessly. “Hell, I even offered you Waterman and his wife’s heads on a silver platter and you turned that down too.”

Janna’s lips twisted in amusement at the outraged disgust on Rafe’s face. “I didn’t mean to appear ungrateful,” she said soberly, her brown eyes twinkling. “I’ve just never found revenge particularly rewarding.”

His hand had moved from her face and was now playing with her braid. He gave it a sharp admonitory tug. “It’s all that blasted idealism,” he said gruffly, but with a surprisingly tender curve to his lips. “If you lived in the real world, you’d know revenge can be very sweet indeed.” There was almost an abashed expression on his face as he asked softly, “Do you like your present, Pocahontas?”

Janna could feel her throat tighten, and her eyes misted with tears. “I love my present, Rafe,” she said shakily, trying to smile. “If this was meant to heal my hurt, you certainly know how to apply a very impressive bandage.” She turned her head, and pressed a lingering kiss on the hand that was wrapped around her braid. “Thank you.”

“Oh, hell, you’re not going to cry again,” he protested disgustedly.

She laughed huskily, experiencing that same melting tenderness. “No, I’m not going to cry again,”
she assured him throatily, and immediately a tear brimmed over and ran down her cheek.

He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed vigorously at her brimming eyes. “I should have known better than to trust a woman’s word,” he said, with a gloomy sigh. “This is where I came in. What will it take this time to make you stop?” His lips twisted wryly. “I suppose I could put all my resources into finding a method to make Tibetan panda bears reproduce. Would that make you happy?”

“Oh, Rafe.” His name was half laugh, half sob, and the tears started to flow faster than ever.

Rafe muttered an imprecation and pulled her swiftly into his arms, one hand holding her face buried in the soft fleecy material of his sweat shirt. His heartbeat was strong and steady beneath her ear, and he smelled deliciously of the clean fragrance of soap and the faint woodsy tang of cologne.

“Lord, what am I going to do with you?” Rafe murmured softly, rocking her tenderly. “Why couldn’t you have picked someone else’s wall to climb over? My life was so simple before you came along. I don’t want to feel like this, damn it.” His hand was gently massaging her nape. “I lied to you when I told you that I’d never had a pet. None of the foster homes I was in would let me have a cat or a dog, but there was a little gray-and-white kitten I found living in a cardboard box in an alley. I couldn’t bring it home, but I’d feed her every day, and it got so she would run to meet me every time I turned into the alley. Then one day the kitten didn’t come to meet me, and I never saw it again. I think I missed that kitten more than I did my mother when she deserted me. That kitten was
mine
, damn it. She had no right to go away.” His arms tightened around her. “I never felt like that about anyone or anything again, until I saw you that night in the study. I’ve never felt tenderness for a woman before or wanted to protect her. I certainly never felt it necessary to have a woman
beside me constantly for companionship as well as sex.” His voice was oddly husky. “I’m scared as hell, Janna. Because some day I’m going to turn around and you’re not going to be there either. I won’t let you do that to me.”

Janna tried to lift her head, but he held it firmly pressed to his shoulder. “No, don’t move,” he said softly. “I like to feel you all weak and cuddly in my arms. “You’re so blasted strong and self-reliant that I won’t get this opportunity very often.”

She didn’t really want to move, and she relaxed against his hard warmth with a sigh of contentment. The next few moments were almost dreamlike as they stood wrapped in each other’s arms in an intimacy free from all desires or demands, giving and partaking only of the warmth of their bodies. She didn’t want to let herself think of the words Rafe had just spoken. They revealed an unexpected vulnerability she’d never suspected in a man of his tough ruthlessness, and that vulnerability was far more dangerous to her than Rafe’s undisputed sexual expertise. Each word had seemed to forge another link in the chain that was beginning to bind them together, a chain Rafe was also obviously struggling to sever.

“Shall I go away?” she asked quietly, after a long quiet moment in his arms.

“It’s too late for that,” he answered slowly, and she felt the soft brush of a kiss on her brow. “We’ll just have to ride it out. Maybe it really is only a temporary aberration.” He pushed her away and looked gravely into her face. “I sure as hell hope so.” His arms dropped from around her, and he turned and glanced out the window again. “It’s clouding up. I think we’re going to have a storm,” he commented abruptly.

“Should we get back to the Castle?” Janna asked, her eyes following his to the lowering darkness in the west. “Will it be dangerous flying the helicopter?”

“There’s no immediate hurry,” he said casually, sliding an arm around her waist and turning her toward the door. “It appears to be moving fairly slowly. We may even have time to get in our picnic before it hits. There’s a lake about a half mile from here that looks like an ideal spot.”

It was also a very beautiful spot, Janna thought contentedly thirty minutes later, as she unpacked the food from the picnic hamper and placed it on a gold, brown, and white plaid blanket. The lake was very small but amazingly clear, shimmering like mother of pearl under the rapidly graying skies and mirroring the tall verdant pines and oaks surrounding it.

“It’s really lovely here, isn’t it?” Janna asked softly as her gaze traveled contentedly around the bucolic panorama before her. “Southern California has almost everything.”

“Almost?” Rafe asked, his brow arching mockingly. “There are Californians who would argue about that qualification.” He was sprawled lazily across from her, leaning against a boulder, and he reached for a crusty piece of chicken as he spoke.

“I miss the seasons,” Janna said, pouring coffee from the thermos into paper cups. She handed one across to him and then poured one for herself. “This time of year at home the trees are ablaze with color.” Her brown eyes were warm with memories as she lifted the coffee to her lips. “There’s a hill on our farm that’s absolutely fantastic when the leaves have turned. The hues are so brilliant it hurts you to look at them. Every fall my grandmother and I used to gather baskets of leaves and bring them home to decorate the house. She was wonderful with any kind of floral arrangement.”

His dark eyes were thoughtful on her face. “You and your grandmother are very close, aren’t you?” he asked idly.

Janna nodded. “Very close,” she said quietly. “She’s
been my friend, my teacher, almost my other half, from the time I could toddle around after her. We had a rapport so strong that most of the time we didn’t even need words.”

“What about your father?” Rafe asked. “Were you equally close to him?”

Janna’s face clouded. “No. I think perhaps he tried after my mother died, but he could never really understand either of us.” She shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t want to. I think he was a little ashamed of having a Cherokee Indian mother. Even today being a half-breed in a white world can be very difficult.”

“It must have been considerably worse for your grandmother,” Rafe said speculatively. “I’m surprised she even had the courage to leave her people to marry your grandfather.”

Janna lowered her lashes to veil the sudden mistiness of her eyes. “Oh, she has plenty of courage,” she said throatily. “She’s the bravest lady I know.” Her lips curved bitterly. “But it didn’t take any great amount of courage for her to leave the reservation.” She glanced over at Rafe inquiringly. “Have you ever visited an Indian reservation?” When he shook his head, she said soberly, “I have. My grandmother took me to the one where she grew up, when I was a small child.” She shivered. “It was like a concentration camp. The boundaries were even marked with barbed-wire fencing. I don’t know how she was able to bear it.” Her face was shadowed with memories. “She couldn’t ever stand to be confined. As long as I can remember, weather permitting, she’s slept on the screened-in porch that runs along the back of the house. She said she couldn’t breathe penned up within walls. I think she would have died if she’d had to stay on that reservation.”

Santine straightened slowly, a frown creasing his forehead. “Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?” he asked, his lips tightening. He threw the halfeaten piece of chicken aside. “If she’s as strong as
you say, she might have adjusted quite happily to the loss of freedom. How do you know that she wouldn’t have found compensations?”

Her eyes widened at his vehemence. Why was he so angry? “Because I know her,” she faltered. “Nothing could have compensated for what she’d have lost.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” Rafe said moodily. He cast a restless glance at the sky, which was rapidly turning from gray to a stormy blue-black. “Come on,” he said abruptly as he knelt and started throwing the remains of their lunch haphazardly back into the picnic basket. “That storm’s going to cut loose any minute. We’d better try to find some shelter.”

They were only halfway back to the farmhouse when the first drops began to fall. It was quickly followed by a deluge, which soaked them both to the skin in a matter of minutes. Rafe grabbed her elbow and propelled her into a brisk sprint that brought them quickly in sight of the farmhouse. But instead of making for the house itself, he stopped at the door of the barn and pulled her into its dim, musty shelter.

“This is closer,” Rafe said in answer to the inquiring glance she shot him. “And the workmen haven’t started renovation here as yet. There’s a chance we may be able to find a blanket or some old clothes to dry off with.” He frowned as his gaze went over her soaked figure. “You’re completely drenched.”

“So are you,” she said lightly, trying to catch her breath after their run from the lake. “I think we’ll both survive.” She grinned happily. “Personally, I feel great.” The sprint through the cold clean rain had sent the blood tingling through her veins, and she felt glowingly alive, despite the fact she probably resembled a drowned puppy.

Rafe put a hand to her cheek. “You’re cold,” he said curtly, his hand falling away as he turned to
survey the interior of the barn. “And once your pulse rate slows down, you’re going to begin to feel it. We’ve got to get you dry.” He was walking briskly between the stalls. “Open the door; it’s dark as Hades in here.”

Janna obediently threw wide the double doors of the barn before following him. He was at the far side of the barn when she joined him, and judging by his expression, what he’d discovered hadn’t pleased him.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said wryly. “Not so much as a moth-eaten old horse blanket. The entire place is practically sterile.”

“I told you it didn’t matter,” Janna said quickly. “Why don’t we just make a run for the helicopter and wait it out there?”

“And by the time the weather clears enough to take off you’d probably have a hell of a chill,” he said curtly, still looking searchingly around the barn. Suddenly his gaze fell upon a ladder leading up to the hayloft. “Bingo,” he said softly. He patted Janna’s extremely wet derriere. “Up you go. I’ll be there in a minute.” He strode briskly toward the front of the barn.

Janna gazed after him for an instant before she turned with a rueful shrug and started to climb the ladder to the loft. Rafe was very quick, and she’d barely reached the confines of the loft when he was ascending the ladder behind her, carrying the picnic hamper, which he’d dropped by the barn door when they ran in from the storm.

Janna moved away from the ladder and sank to her knees in the soft cushion of hay, watching Rafe as he swung lithely off the top step of the ladder. He squatted beside her and opened the hamper. “We’ll have to make do with the materials we have on hand,” he said as he rifled hastily through the basket. He scowled disgustedly. “God knows there appear to be few enough of them in here.”

Janna’s lips quirked. “It’s a picnic hamper, not a
nuclear survival kit,” she said demurely, her brown eyes twinkling.

“Very amusing,” he said dryly, glancing up at her. “I wonder if you’ll prove as entertaining with a lousy head cold.” He snapped the hamper shut and pushed it aside. “One blanket, one tablecloth, eight napkins, and four paper towels.”

“Pretty good, considering,” Janna said blithely, sitting back on her heels. “That’s obviously a picnic hamper fit for a billionaire. My picnic lunches usually consist of a sandwich stuck in a paper bag.”

“Come here,” he ordered briskly, and when she edged closer so that she was facing him, he picked up one of the gold, brown, and white plaid napkins and began to pat her face dry. “Knowing you, that probably suited you right down to the ground,” he said absently. He wiped away the dampness from her nape. “Nothing to keep you from moving on once you’d finished your meal, and nothing to take along with you either.” His hands were rapidly unbraiding her hair.

“Well, it’s definitely more convenient when I’m out on the reserve,” she admitted as his hands threaded themselves through her loosened hair and combed through it briskly.

“Your hair isn’t as wet as I thought,” Rafe said idly, throwing the damp napkin aside and picking up another one. He separated a long silky tress and began to dry it with the cloth. “Some of it must have been protected by the braiding.”