L.A. Caveman (15 page)

"Did you have a special relationship
with him, Stanna? An intimate one?" His grasp tightened painfully.
His acid voice would have stung her if she weren't struck by the
humor of it. Her and Ian. She imagined the man’s frail body and
lined old face and dapper little distinguished-gentleman clothing.
Ridiculous!

He caught her amused expression and
his mask-like face relaxed slightly, as did his grip, but he still
waited for her answer.

"Not 'special' the way you're
implying, buddy. Unlike
some
people, he was harmless that
way." She thought about Ian and what she’d tried to suggest to Jake
concerning him. Namely, that Ian had the motivation and resources
to mess with
Men's Weekly
. But it seemed so silly now that
she held the image of weak, fired old Ian in her mind.

She decided not to mention her
fleeting suspicion. The recent
Men's Weekly
difficulties was
just bad luck and doubtless the result of Jake's controversial new
angles. Some unstable schoolteacher probably found an issue of
Men's Weekly
under Junior's pillow, followed Jake home and
painted his garage with correctly spelled profanity.

The air must be getting thin, Stanna
thought. Her mind's imaginings had her vilifying poor old Ian and
innocent schoolteachers.

He was tugging her to a stop and
turned to face her. His broad chest and shoulders blocked her view
of anything but him, he stood so close. "I apologize for suggesting
anything about you and Ian," he stated formally.

"It’s okay. Humorous, really," she
began.

He placed his finger on her lips to
quiet her and continued. "But I think it's strange he still calls
you. If it's to talk about the magazine, that's bad. That's what's
known as a 'conflict of interest.' We don't know if he's ferreting
for info to start his own competing magazine, or something
worse."

Flippantly, she replied, "If you want
to worry about someone starting a competing magazine, worry about
me. I'd blow you out of the water."

He smiled at that, but nodded his
head:
maybe-possibly
. "Just the same, it's a delicate
situation. I have to ask that you keep magazine business
confidential."

Stanna felt a twinge of guilt. Did he
know she hadn't exactly been closed-mouthed on magazine business
with Ian, and she'd been especially vocal in her disapproval of
Jake? In the beginning it was because she'd still held out hope
that somehow Ian might return as editor. But later she was just
venting and trying to make an old, fired man feel better. He seemed
to enjoy -- encouraged, really -- her slamming of Jake's leadership
and ideas and plans.

Jake was making her feel sneaky and
disloyal. And ashamed. Stanna frowned. All she was doing was trying
to preserve her professional lifestyle and aspirations. She was
entitled to protect herself, wasn't she? Ian was just a friendly
former colleague, a mentor in absence, who probably called every
day out of loneliness more than anything. Did she tell Jake that
Ian called every day? She didn't think she had.

While she debated whether to tell him,
she felt the first splatters of raindrops on her head. Surprised,
for she had been so distracted by her internal musings that she'd
forgotten they were simply standing on the trail, she looked at the
sky above her. It was darkening with rain clouds. Looking for the
sinking sun, she spotted a diffused glow from behind the hills now
far beneath her. They were almost at the top of Sandpiper
Peak.

"C'mon," he uttered and tugged her up
the trail.

"Do you know where you're going?" she
asked, looking around for a big tree or outcropping where they
could take cover. There wasn't anything. They were at the top of
the peak. "Maybe we should head back to that big oak tree a ways
down the trail," she suggested, beginning to pant with the
double-speed pace he again set.

He didn't even slow down. Miffed, she
was about to dig in her heels when they rounded a bend and viewed
what lay beyond the trail sloping down. A small valley.

Even the gray skies and her
rain-blurred vision couldn't dim the beauty of the place. It was as
if they'd crossed into another world. Lush grasses grew uncut and
she thought she spotted a bobcat leaping through it. Dots of
evergreen Chamise and Toyon plant varieties grew wild next to deep
red, yellow, and purple wildflowers. Twisted, ancient-looking trees
dotted the grassland with artistic irregularity, and a muddy
mini-canyon cut a violent gash through a third of it. A quaint
little wooden bridge spanned the nearer mini-crevasse, leading to
the wonder of the meadow perched in a small soon-to-be-muddy
clearing: a tiny gray-brown cottage from another
century.

It was a single-room frontier shack
with what she thought at first was a bell-tower jutting out of one
end of the roof. But on closer inspection she recognized the
old-style chimney roof, a little pyramid perched above the stubby
square of the chimney.

The house had a base of rough-hewn
stones, but weathered gray wood made up the walls and door and
roof. It was nearly small enough to be a large shed, or a garage. A
white picket fence described a small circle in front of it. A
protected patch of gardening?

It charmed her.

Jake headed directly toward
it.

Then she did dig in her
heels.

That just got her pulled along a few
feet before Jake slowed his bull-run enough to notice she wasn't
cooperating.

"Now what?" he asked, exasperated. He
wiped rain from his forehead with a vehement arc of his arm. "Do
you want to be carried over the threshold?"

"Think the people who live there now
will mind the company?" she retorted, folding her arms across her
chest.

He walked towards her, smiling
slightly. "Oh no, they won't mind. They only live there between
eight and nine o'clock Pacific Time on Tuesdays." He cocked his
head, visibly enjoying her confusion.

"Care to explain?" she queried
finally.

"Television. This hut, here," he waved
a muscular arm at it, "is property of Paramount. They use it for
filming." He grinned at her somewhat proudly. "Nobody's
home."

"How did you know about it?" she asked
him grudgingly as she began to walk quickly beside him. The rain
was really beginning to pelt them. "And how do we get in," she
added, peering at the door. Would it have an old-fashioned little
latch on it? She couldn't see one. “And isn’t breaking in
illegal?”

He ignored her last question. "I've
been here before. Sandpiper Peak is the only hill around here that
offers any challenge. No offense, but in Colorado we'd laugh at the
idea of this bump being called a 'peak.' Pikes Peak: now that's a
mountain."

"You're pretty athletic," she
observed.

He shot a quick grin at her. "I've
been at it a long time," he said modestly.

She'd just bet he had.

He darted a glance at the cabin. She
followed his gaze. Close up, it was smaller rather than larger. She
wondered if Jake'd have to duck his head going in the door. He
seemed to be wondering about getting into the home too. "As far as
a way inside... if it’s locked I actually have no idea.
Yet."

She looked at him quickly.

"Maybe the door's unlocked again," he
offered. She looked back at the little house. A skinny porch looked
hardly big enough to support someone's weight, but the tiny flare
of roof above the door offered moderate shelter.

They hurried through the downpour over
the small arched bridge and past the picket fence. They hopped up
the rickety porch steps and lunged at the door. Stanna wiggled the
handle.

Locked.

Jake pushed her to the side and tried
it himself, adding his weight against the door.

Still nothing.

"Maybe the windows?"

"Shutters. They latch from the
inside." Then a thoughtful expression crossed his face. Silently he
trotted down the stairs and gazed up at the roof. "Stanna?" he
asked.

"Yes?"

"Do you know First Aid?"

"No."

"Oh well." He shrugged off his
backpack, tossed it to the foot of the house where the little ridge
of roof would shelter it from some of the rain. Reaching up, he
grabbed a corner and with one violent lunge swung his legs onto the
roof. He hauled the rest of himself up in a dazzling display of
upper-body strength. Quickly, he maneuvered himself in lithe,
muscle-rippling movements up the gentle but slippery
slope.

To the chimney.

Stanna realized what he intended.
"Jake!" She meant it to be an angry yell, but it came out a fearful
shriek.

He paused. Waved. Then lowered himself
feet-first under the cone-shaped mini-roof of the chimney and
disappeared.

Stanna listened for the
thud.

Stanna waited on the porch with her
heart in her throat, breathing shallowly, but all she heard was the
steady sound of rain falling. She faced the front door with hope
and dread.

Her body began to shake with the chill
and tension. She became conscious of her own backpack sliding down
strengthless arms.

He had to be okay. She didn't know
First Aid, so he had to be okay. Those were the rules, she firmly
told any benevolent deities tuned in to her little
drama.

The sudden click and clatter of locks
being turned made her jump. Then she was leaping forward to help
open the door and he stood there just inside, smudges of dirt
streaking his grinning handsome face and it was the most natural
thing in the world to fling her arms around him and plant a
heartfelt kiss on those amazingly warm lips.

He returned the kiss
enthusiastically.

His lips moved with instant mastery
over hers, parting them to thrust his hot tongue into her mouth.
After the chill of the rain, his heat nearly made her
swoon.

His muscular cable-hard arms held her
against him effortlessly. His hands moved over her, rubbing her
back up and down gently. The demanding pulse of desire that
throbbed through her left her aching.

He ended the kiss. His eyes glowing
mere inches from hers, he ruefully told her, "I suppose I should
rescue my pack before the rain destroys our dinner." He held her a
moment longer. He shook his head, bemused, as he finally dropped
his arms from around her. "You’re a very interesting woman,
Stanna."

She tipped her finger,
right back
at ya.
"You aren't putting me to sleep, either." Understatement
of the century.

Breathe, Stanna, she reminded herself
as he brushed by her. She felt a smile curve her lips. Her mind
paraphrased Jake's statement into her own thought: this was turning
out to be a very interesting day.

She took a step further into the
house, hearing a creak and feeling the wood floor give ever so
slightly beneath her sneaker. It was getting dark, so she unlatched
and cracked open the three shutters enough to let in the fading
afternoon light.

There wasn't much within the four
walls of the house. A large, wide cook place/fireplace with a neat
pyramid of firewood stacked beside it dominated one wall. An
antique cot lay tucked against the opposite wall. And between them,
against the third wall, perched a small rickety table-sized hutch
with some bowls and plates and utensils within it and a large
half-melted white candle on top. One chair. There wasn't anything
else. There wasn't room for much else, but it could have used some
personal touches, she observed. She supposed the starkness could be
Hollywood's idea of period realism.

The star must be a guy, she
concluded.

The door shut softly behind. Jake lay
her backpack at her feet and paced to the one chair. He took a seat
to unzip his own larger backpack. He pulled out matches, lighted
the candle. The orange-yellow glow warmed up the gray light
filtering in through the shutters.

Then, as naturally as if the little
cabin were his second home, he stepped to the fireplace, lifted
some cords of firewood from the stack, and proceeded to expertly
start up a cozy hearth fire.

Stanna smiled in appreciation of his
take-charge approach to their trespassing. He knelt before the
mouth of the fireplace. She admired the way his blue T-shirt clung
wetly to his broad, powerful back. Glancing down at her own white
tee, she was glad for the extra concealing layer of her athletic
bra.

She shivered.

They were both a bit underdressed for
a rainy evening on a mountain.

Then she remembered the picnic blanket
she'd packed. She grinned wryly. It was supposed to be used as
something to sit on while they ate cheese and crackers in the
sunshine.

She sat on the cot, pulled the blanket
out and draped herself in it.

"You'll be warmer over here by the
fire." His melodious rumble seemed to warm her insides all by
itself.
Fire? Who needs fire?

"I'm fine," she said shortly. He was
entirely too appealing, basking his powerful body in front of the
licking flames like some kind of primitive hunter.