Miss Greenhorn (11 page)

“I don't want to have a love affair with you,” she said, glaring at him.

“If you love me, why not?” he asked.

“Because sex is sordid without mutual feeling,” she returned icily. “Don't you ever listen to the sermons when you go to church?”

He shrugged. “Not usually. You could go with us next Sunday and I'll try.”

“I won't be here next Sunday,” she said, and went white when she said it, because it was only then that she fully accepted that the group was leaving Saturday. Tears stung her eyes and made them suddenly bright, and her throat felt as if it had a pincushion in it.

His jaw tautened at the look on her face. “Don't look like that,” he warned gruffly. “I'll come right over that table after you if you do, and to hell with gossip. I can't bear to watch you cry!”

She lowered her face and struggled for composure. “Why do you do this to me?” she wailed.

“Why do you do it to me?” he countered. “My God, do you realize I've been stuck out here in the sand for over three years without a woman? I've been celibate so long, I'm surprised that my body even remembered how to react when it had a half-naked woman against it!”

She looked up, shocked. “What?”

“I've been celibate for three years,” he said, slowly as if she was too thick to understand words of more than one syllable. “You aren't the only one who had to do some renovating on yourself. I've never been much to look at, but I had money, so there was the occasional woman who gave her all for a few luxuries in the past. But I hated being bedded for my wallet, so I gave up on the fair sex. Then it dawned on me that a man can work on his appearance if he wants to, so I lost some weight and had my hair styled, got some new clothes and…other things…and my life changed overnight. But suddenly sex for its own sake wasn't enough. I seemed to lose my taste for it. Until you came along,” he added darkly, “and complicated things.”

“What did you look like before?” she asked, fascinated.

“Never mind. I'll show you a photo one day.” His eyes narrowed. “Saturday is too soon. You can stay.”

“I can't, you know,” she replied sadly. “Joyce Ann made me promise to help her with her husband's banquet. She's a hopeless cook, you see, and it's going to be a major occasion for him. He's a junior partner in his business and two of the big bosses are expected.”

He smiled at her lazily. “Can you cook?”

“Yes. I'm not
cordon bleu
,” she murmured, smiling back, “but I used to win prizes at the fair for my pies and cakes.” She lowered her eyes. “I'm doing some French haute cuisine for the banquet.”

“You could come back, when it's over,” he suggested.

She couldn't tell him that she wouldn't be able to afford the plane fare again. Her pride wouldn't let her. She just shook her head. “I have commitments.”

“To Harry,” he said icily.

She lifted her eyes. “Yes. To Harry. He may not be the world's greatest lover, but he's kind and I'll have security.”

“You'll have nothing,” he said. “Nothing, except the memory of what it was like to lie in my arms.”

She bit her lip. “That's not fair.”

“I can make it more than a harmless memory,” he said, his voice deepening. “I could give you one long, endless night to carry back with you. We could go all the way.”

Her eyes closed. She loved him, and he knew it, but it wasn't fair to taunt her like this. “I can't,” she moaned.

“Look at me!”

The commanding tone brought her pained eyes up to meet his.

“I won't let you get pregnant,” he said roughly. “And there's no danger of anything else with me, because I've never been promiscuous. I've been careful, in every way. I can give you something you'll never have with your stodgy prospective husband.”

“I know that,” she replied quietly, averting her eyes. “But I'd be cheating him out of something that's his due if he marries me. And you can sit there and harp on the new morality and my old-fashioned hang-ups until hell freezes over,” she added when he started to speak, “but it's a matter of honor with me. If a man is willing to give me his name and be faithful to me, I owe him something in return. He has every right to expect fidelity in me.”

He caught his breath. She was right. But he'd never thought of it like that. Fidelity. Honor. She was quoting words he'd said without understanding them. Now, suddenly, he did. She felt that she had to be faithful, even when there was no ring, when no vows had been spoken. A woman like that would never settle for any convenient bed partner after she was married, or indulge in casual affairs without seeing the harm in them. She'd marry one man, love one man, die faithful to one man. She'd have his children… .

He stopped there. No, she wouldn't have Harry's children. He didn't want any more. She'd die without having known the beauty of an infant in her arms, and it was so pointless. She was made to be a mother. He watched her ardently, trying to imagine how she'd look big with his own child inside her body, blooming in the fulfillment of motherhood. A scalding need surfaced in him, one he'd never realized he possessed. He wanted a family of his own. A wife. Sons. Daughters. He was thirty-seven years old and, except for his mother, totally alone. He had no one, really. But he wanted to have someone. He wanted Christy. His eyes narrowed. He hadn't really expected her to take him up on his offer of one wild night of love, although at the time, it had seemed perfectly sensible to offer it. Now he wasn't sure that he should have. She was a woman completely out of his experience. A woman with principles. He felt suddenly proud that a woman like that could love him.

“Fidelity,” he repeated, watching her. “One man, one love. But if you don't love him, aren't you going to be cheating him, just the same?”

“I'll learn to love him,” she said stubbornly.

“You said you loved me,” he returned, and the words warmed him as he saw them hit the target.

She shifted restlessly in her chair. “You yourself said that that was just a cheap physical interlude,” she returned, her voice wounded.

“I never said it was cheap,” he returned. His eyes kindled. “That was the one thing it could never be, between you and me. My God, just the idea of letting a woman see me without my clothes was unthinkable only a week ago!”

She gasped. “You're not serious!”

“Why not?” he asked, his expression dark and formidable. “Do you think you're the only one with hang-ups? It was the most natural thing in the world to let you look at me, but I'd never have pulled that sheet away with any other woman.”

Her eyes looked everywhere except at him, because the memory of what she'd seen was potent.

“And you needn't look so shocked,” he replied. “You can't pretend that you've ever let your heartthrob back home look at you the way you let me.”

She couldn't, she thought. She gazed at him across the table and her eyes adored the blurry line of his face. He was almost ugly, despite the self-improvement he'd mentioned, but it wasn't for his looks that he attracted women. There was a very definite masculinity in his personality, a take-charge attitude that was reassuring and comforting. Added to that was a tenderness she could feel in him, and a compassion that was deep and certain. He had qualities that appealed to everything womanly in her.

She picked at her meal halfheartedly. She had little appetite, and she was all too aware of time passing. She'd have to go home Saturday, back to her familiar world, but it was no longer an eagerly anticipated trip. She didn't know how she was going to survive leaving Nate.

“I've enjoyed being here,” she said absently.

“It must have been a change for you,” he replied.

“Sand is sand, they say,” she murmured and smiled at him. “But there's such a difference between mine and yours.”

“I suppose so.”

She glanced up, her eyes lingering on the stitched red gash on his forehead, half obscured by his shock of dark hair. “How's your head?” she asked.

“Hard,” he returned dryly. “I guess that's what saved me.”

“I've never even been in a mine,” she said.

“You haven't missed much.” He leaned back with his coffee cup in his lean hand, watching her. “What does your Harry look like?” he asked.

He seemed to be pretty curious about Harry. Odd, when he didn't want a permanent relationship with her anyway. “He's a little taller than me,” she replied. “Graying. He has a beer belly and he's sort of red-faced. He isn't handsome, but he's nice.”

“I'm not handsome, and I'm not nice to boot.”

She lifted her eyes to his face. “I wouldn't mind being trapped in a cave-in with you,” she said simply. “Because I know you'd get us out one way or the other. Harry would sit down and give up. He isn't a fighter.”

“You can do better than Harry,” he said.

“Can I? I put on my best clothes and came out here with my changed image, and you thought I was a hooker,” she reminded him.

“I did not,” he returned, his eyes blazing. “I thought you were a gold digger.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I didn't know you,” he reminded her. He smiled slowly. “The real you came as quite a shock. I didn't plan on stopping that afternoon, out on the desert, you know,” he added bluntly. “At that time, I had every intention of seducing you. Then I found out why you were so embarrassed when I looked at you.”

“I'm sorry I gave you the wrong impression,” she told him. “I wasn't trying to tease, even if it did seem that way.”

“Yes, I've figured that out,” he murmured, and there was a curious, knowing look on his face. “Are you going to be free tomorrow afternoon?”

The question thrilled her. She should have said “no” and played it safe, but she couldn't resist him. “Yes,” she replied.

“I thought we might take in a movie in Tucson.” He toyed with his cup. “There's a murder mystery that I've wanted to see.”

He named it and she beamed. It was one she'd been looking forward to herself.

“I'd like that,” she said.

He put down his cup, studying her long and hard. His slate eyes narrowed. “I'm too much a bachelor to offer you marriage,” he said honestly. “And too much a gentleman to seduce you. I suppose we'll have to be friends, since that's all we have left.”

“I wouldn't mind that,” she lied.

“Neither would I. It gets lonely here.” He turned the cup carefully on the table. “An occasional one-night stand doesn't do a thing for me anymore. I suppose I'm getting old.” He looked up. “What we did together in my bed yesterday was a memory I'll treasure for the rest of my life.”

“But we hardly did anything, really,” she stammered.

“Didn't we?” He stood up, towering over her, his gaze long and steady on her uplifted face. She couldn't know how adoring her eyes were, how warm and caring and soft. They made him feel humble and guilty, all at the same time. He wished he was more of a gambler. If he had been, he'd have taken her away from Harry and married her out of hand and trusted to luck to keep them together. But it would be more of a risk than she realized. She was too unworldly, and her emotions were in a state of flux. He was afraid to take the chance that what she felt might only be infatuation.

“Sleep tight, honey,” he said gently. He touched her hair as he passed her. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight,” she called after him.

She finished her meal and went into the recreation room to watch the chess game with the group. She didn't want to be alone just yet with her thoughts, because they were too painful already.

* * *

The next afternoon, George left her alone while he helped Dr. Adamson with some measurements. She closed her eyes and felt the wind in her face, smelled the clean air with its faint scent of ancient pottery and desert vegetation. It was marvelous, the freedom she felt here, in this vast expanse of land. It seemed endless and wide open. Except for the total lack of trees in most places, it was very enticing. Of course, there were places in Florida where trees were scarce, too. But there was ocean and salt air all around, there.

It didn't get dark until late, so she wasn't aware of the passage of time. She sat down on a big boulder to brush sand off the design on a piece of pottery when two sounds impinged on her consciousness. One was the sound of an approaching Jeep, and she smiled to herself, because it had to be Nate coming after her. It touched her that he cared enough to do that, when she could have ridden in with the van.

But the other sound, the one that followed, was enough to chill her blood. She knew so well the noise that a rattlesnake makes. The Eastern diamondback is fairly common in south Georgia and northern Florida. The sound its rattle makes is unforgettable, like sizzling hot grease. This was the same sound, and she was aware that there was a Western diamondback, a counterpart to the snakes she knew.

She knew better than to move. She sat very still, like a statue, and waited for Nate while she prayed that the snake wouldn't decided to sink its sharp fangs into her leg. Even if they got her to the antivenom in time, she would still be very sick until she recovered from the bite.

Nate would know what to do, thank God. She felt safer just knowing he was nearby. It would be all right.

“Christy?” She heard his deep voice calling her.

Did she dare answer, or would that venomous reptile be irritated by the vibrations of her voice and strike? If she didn't say something and Nate made much noise when he approached, it might happen anyway. She had nothing to lose, really.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip nervously. “Nate, there's a rattlesnake!” she called.

There was a rough curse and the sound of running footsteps. Barely a minute later, a lifetime later as she sat stiffly and prayed, the footsteps returned.