Not Even for Love (17 page)

She raised her head and looked down into mischievous green eyes. “Are we talking about the same kind of appetite?”

“Ohhhhh, you’re talking about
food
.”

She swatted him on the bottom and disentangled her arms and legs. “What would you like for breakfast? Smoked oysters or pâté?”

“Ugh!”

“How about bread and butter?”

“That’s better.”

She took a loaf of bread and the butter out of the picnic hamper beside the door and brought it back to him. He watched lazily as she liberally spread butter on the bread and handed it to him.

“You aren’t hungry?” he asked when she didn’t fix anything for herself.

“No. Just remember, if we’re stuck in here for days, that you owe me one ration of bread and butter.”

While he munched, Jordan toyed with his ears. She rubbed the lobes between her fingers. Then her hands moved down his neck and shoulders, massaging as they went.

“You do that very well,” he remarked, then took another huge bite of bread.

Jordan was somewhat piqued that he could accept her evocative ministrations so blithely. Determinedly she allowed her fingertips to lightly brush across his chest. His enthusiastic chewing ceased abruptly. Her smooth oval fingertips found the flat, brown nipples unerringly. He swallowed hard.

“I don’t suppose you’d want to occupy yourself with some other pastime while I finish my breakfast, would you?” he asked in a low, throaty voice.

Her lips curved upward in a gamine smile as she shook her head no and moved closer to him. Her hair trailed across his face bewitchingly. She lowered her head and tormented with her flicking tongue what her fingers had brought to hard distension.

“Jordan—” he gasped. “God, that feels good. How … how did you know to do this?”

“Instinct,” she breathed against his skin.

“God bless Mother Nature.”

He couldn’t say more. Her mouth continued to amuse itself on his chest while her hands slid lower down his torso.

His breath was trapped in his lungs, longing to burst free. He waited in anguished anticipation until her fingers combed through the dark thatch on his abdomen and beyond. Only then did a soft, almost painful moan escape from his throat. He fell back against the blanket.

Frugal as they must be with their food, the crust of bread was tossed, forgotten into a corner.

“Is this—”

“Heaven?” he interrupted. “Yes, it’s heaven.”

“Do you like—”

“Do you have to ask?”

“I want you to tell me.”

He opened his eyes and searched her anxious expression. She was still almost virginal, innocent, nervous, wanting to please him. His face softened as he placed his palms on both sides of her face. “Yes, yes. Touch me, Jordan.”

Her mouth was brutalized by lips that conquered with finesse. Her breasts were attacked by hands whose strength lay in the persuasion of their tender touch. Her nipples were lashed by a rough-soft tongue that was only a harbinger to greedy lips tempered by gentleness.

By now their bodies were so well acquainted that he knew the instant she was ready to receive him. He plunged into her, deeper, fuller, more certain of his right to be there than ever before. Every part of him, the man he was, the man he aspired to be, concentrated in that mysterious haven that belonged uniquely to Jordan. He felt enriched, emboldened, empowered, and for the first time in his life knew the spiritual heights of loving as well as the physical.

“I meant what I said that first night,” he said hoarsely in her ear.

“What?” It wasn’t a word. It was a soft expulsion of breath that only he could understand.

“It’s never been like this for me, Jordan.” On the last word, the tumult came and he repeated her name in a rhythmic meter. That’s why he couldn’t hear the soft words she chanted into his shoulder. “I love you I love you I love you.”

“Jordan? Are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“It’s getting light outside.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” He stirred slightly and arched his head backward. “I can see daylight through the crack under the door.” The woman beside him didn’t move and he resumed his original position with his chin resting on the crown of her head. “The wind isn’t blowing.”

She sighed heavily but only hugged him tighter. “Do you think the storm is over?” The words were more portentous then either of them wanted to admit.

“Yes.” He didn’t feel inclined to move either. Half-heartedly he said, “We really should get up and dress.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

“I don’t want to,” he groaned.

“I don’t either.”

They clung to each other tenaciously and kissed with desperate passion. They knew their idyll was over. Someone would come looking for them.

Helmut.

They got up and dressed silently, suddenly shy of each other. After hours of immodest, total nakedness, they now averted their heads. Their conversation, when they dared to speak at all, was trite, and so they dropped the embarrassing effort. Everything that could be said had been.

Reeves opened the door and looked out. The mountain-side was blanketed with snow, but it wasn’t very deep. The sky was still cloudy, but not oppressive. The wind had diminished to a breeze that barely disturbed the clumps of snow in the pine needles on the trees.

“I think we can make it down once we get a bearing on where we are. We’ll take it slow.”

“All right,” she answered listlessly. While Reeves banked the fire so it would harmlessly burn itself out, she folded the tarps and stored them where they had been.

Reeves pulled on his windbreaker and zipped it closed. He insisted that she wrap the blanket around her, though they didn’t think the cold air would be nearly so bad without the howling wind of last evening. When the backpack, the camera case, and the picnic basket were divided as they had been the day before, they left the sanctuary of the shed.

Jordan took one slow, sweeping glance around the small room, ostensibly to make sure they hadn’t overlooked anything. Actually she wanted to fix it firmly in her mind, to safeguard it forever in her memory. Tears made the snow-covered landscape look watery as she followed Reeves out of the shed. She trekked along behind his lead.

Cautiously, but easily, they reached the edge of the timberline. Soon after they cleared it, they saw the search party below them snaking up the side of the mountain. There must have been thirty or forty men in mountain-climbing attire fanned out in a long horizontal line on the hillside.

Reeves stopped and surveyed the sight with a wry grin on his face. “You can tell by the thoroughness of the operation that Helmut’s in charge.”

Jordan didn’t respond. Instead she shifted his camera case from one arm to the other and followed him as he started down again. What would she tell Helmut? Would he ask about last night? Would he know without asking? Surely if she and Reeves looked at each other the truth about their night together would reveal itself.

But the closer they came to the group of men looking for them, the tighter the lines around Reeves’s mouth became. His eyes weren’t shining with a glow of passion as they had done all night. Instead they seemed to reflect the icy patches of snow he skirted around on their careful descent. They were cold.

Anxiety seared her chest, and it was far more painful than her hard breathing. In some secret part of her heart she had hoped that they might reconcile their ambitions for the future, compromise on what they wanted out of life. The splendor of last night couldn’t be so easily dismissed, could it?

“They’ve seen us,” said Reeves, tersely breaking into her thoughts. He set down the heavy basket and waved both arms high over his head.

Jordan saw one of the men respond by enthusiastically waving back. He was wearing a bright red ski jacket and tight black pants tucked into cleated boots. He was unmistakably Helmut. She watched as he turned to excuse most of the men with him, correctly guessing that she and Reeves were safe if they were walking down. Ten or twelve of the men remained with him as he continued to climb.

“Let’s wait for them,” Reeves suggested, and gratefully set down his load. Jordan did likewise. She folded the blanket into a thick cushion, placed it on a wide, flat rock, and they sat down on it. By the time the snow soaked through it, Helmut would be there.

The silence that strained between them grew more tense with each moment. Finally Reeves stirred and let his eyes skim her face before flickering away.

“Jordan, about last night …” He sighed.

Here it comes, she thought. The gradual letdown. Don’t cause a scene. Be calm. Don’t weep or tear at your hair.

“I…I never planned for it to happen with us again. After that night of the storm, when I learned you were engaged, I swore I’d leave you alone. But then you said that you weren’t going to marry Helmut… that day on the mountain and then yesterday morning… being stranded and all—”

“Don’t talk about last night, Reeves. Please.” By an act of will, she prevented the tears that flooded her eyes from overflowing.

Almost on a whisper he asked, “Then you know how I feel about it?”

Yes, she knew. For her it had been a turning point in her life. Had she ever doubted that she was making the right decision not to marry Helmut, she saw clearly now that such a marriage would never come about. Foolish though it was to love a man who had no commitments beyond the next fast-breaking news story, she loved Reeves. Marriage to another man would be unthinkable.

For Reeves it had been an episode. She had been a brief but pleasant interlude in his life. He had found her to be genial, attractive, and—she swallowed—obliging. He had responded as any man would, given the same set of circumstances. Reading anything other than fierce passion into their lovemaking was childish and futile and wrong.

She gulped down a sob. “Yes, I know what it meant to you, Reeves,” she answered with far more serenity in her voice than she had a right to expect.

“Good,” he said with obvious relief.

They saw Helmut striding toward them now. The look on his face, even through his fatigue, was one of elation.

“Jordan, since you understand about last night, I want you to know I’m leaving immediately. I’m going to Paris tonight.”

The words pierced her as no others had. So soon! He
was
ridding himself of her quickly. The severance would be swift, clean, and irrevocable.

She didn’t look at him or respond. She wouldn’t let him see the tears. He’d never know the heartache she was suffering. The death her spirit was dying would be a private one, witnessed by no one. He must never know that she loved him.

Not hesitating until it was too late, she catapulted off their resting place and ran pell mell down the hill, scrambling over the slippery surface. “Helmut!” she shouted. Let Reeves think their time together had been only a casual dalliance for her, too. Let him think she was going back to her wealthy fiancé. Let him think the worst of Jordan Hadlock, but don’t let him see that she loved him.

Helmut was waiting for her with outstretched arms, and, when she threw herself into them, he thought the tears that bathed her face were tears of joy.

“My darling, my darling,” he said comfortingly as he patted her back. “Everything’s all right. You’re safe now. Was it too ghastly?”

Ghastly? Hysteria came very close to the surface. Paradise? Shangri-la? Utopia? Yes. But never ghastly. “I… I’m just glad to see you,” she said as she continued to cling to him. By shutting her eyes she could blot out everything else.

Helmut instructed one of the men to give her something warm to drink. The fellow must have obeyed because Helmut was soon pressing a silver cup against her lips. “Here, darling, drink a sip. It will start to warm you.”

The hot coffee was generously laced with brandy and she choked on the first swallow. His hand was running briskly up and down her back. “Slowly, my dear, slowly. We won’t start back down until you’re ready. No storm is forecast for tonight. I blame myself for not checking the weather report before we started out yesterday. That first storm was expected in the higher elevations. I could have prevented this entire nightmare.”

How glad she was that she and Reeves had been innocent of the storm predictions. They couldn’t be held accountable. They had been victims.

“Reeves, you seem hale and hearty enough despite your ordeal,” Helmut beamed. She didn’t turn around, though she heard Reeves’s footsteps crunching on the snow. “Someone pour this man a drink,” Helmut ordered. “I’m eager to hear how you managed to survive the night and come out of it seemingly unscathed and none the worse for wear.”

Jordan rotated slowly in Helmut’s arms and saw Reeves take a cup similar to the one she was drinking from. He sipped the hot coffee and thanked both Helmut and his assistant.

“After eating that bountiful lunch you brought along, Jordan and I decided to walk it off and go farther up the mountain. We sat down to rest awhile and …” His voice trailed off. Green eyes slid to Jordan, where she was still leaning against Helmut. The eyes bore into her and Reeves’s voice was hard when he continued. “We fell asleep. When we woke up, it was snowing.”

Briefly he outlined their halting trip back down the mountain until they discovered the tool shed. “Luckily we were able to take refuge there.”

Again his eyes flew to Jordan and again she read the open hostility and scorn there. He ignored her then as he turned back to Helmut. “Before the night was over, we were grateful both to a benevolent farmer and to your picnic basket.”

Helmut laughed then and clapped Reeves on the shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of my girl for me.”

Jordan winced at the words. She dared to look up at Reeves. A disdainful sneer marred the handsome features of his face. “She’s a woman easily pleased.” The underlying insult was understood only by her, but she caught his disparagement and resented it highly. She hadn’t exactly ripped off his clothes and chased him around that shed until he finally submitted to her!

She turned back to Helmut and asked, “What about your airplane?”

He stroked her cheek with a loving finger. “How like you, Jordan, darling, to be worried about someone else’s crisis when living through one of your own. My pilot crash landed the aircraft. He, the crew, and the cargo were all intact.”