Not Even for Love (8 page)

She laughed. “Probably.”

He chuckled, then said seriously, “She didn’t understand why I wanted to go to Vietnam ‘to take pictures,’ as she put it. She filed for divorce soon after I left. We had been married less than a year.”

“Oh.” Jordan turned away from him and walked to the railing of the bridge, listening to the water that churned under it.

“Jordan.” When he spoke he was standing close behind her. He was as close as he could get without touching her. “Jordan,” he repeated.

“Yes?”

“Look at me.”

No! She knew that if she did she would want to be held tight against him. Just as she had feared touching his hand that first night for no reason other than a friendly handshake, she feared looking at him now. It had been wrong for them then and it still was. He had his work, his ambition, which literally went worldwide. She had her tiny space on the planet and guarded it jealously, afraid of letting anyone disturb the equanimity she had so carefully constructed.

His hands were on her shoulders and he was turning her toward him. With a now familiar gesture, he lifted her chin with his finger. “I like what you’re wearing.”

That was the last thing she had expected him to say. “Thank you,” was all she could think of to respond.

“You look great in clothes,” he said. “This, however, is a trifle bulky. I can’t see your figure.” His hands unbuttoned her coat and slipped inside. “I liked you much better in the slacks and sweater you were wearing the other night. They showed everything to full advantage.”

He ducked his head and nuzzled his face in the hollow of her neck, which had, without instruction, arched up to meet him.

“Reeves,” she breathed, “don’t.”

Her protest was so feeble that he didn’t even honor it. “I remember what you look like in that pale pink sweater and I remember what you look like without it.” His voice was becoming unsteady as his lips skimmed her face, brushed across her mouth. His hands were under the shawl now, seeking the curves of her breasts. When he found them his moan of gratification matched hers.

Into her hair he murmured, “I like the way you dress, the way you move. I like to watch you eat and drink. Especially hot chocolate. I like the sound of your voice. I love the way you feel. I love the way you touch me. I love the way you smell, the way your skin tastes—”

“Reeves, we shouldn’t. This isn’t right,” she said against his insistent mouth.

“Let me hold you. Let me kiss you. And then tell me it isn’t right. Jordan,” he rasped as his hands closed over the soft mounds beneath her sweater, “I dare you to tell me this isn’t right.”

When his mouth melded with hers, it was impossible to think of a reasonable protest, much less to utter one. His lips burned through hers, and she was doomed to die under their fire. He countenanced no resistance, no reluctance. He sipped at her lips until they became malleable to his will and then he parted them with a gentle thrust of his tongue.

He savored her mouth, one moment ravaging it, the next soothing it with lips and tongue. One arm curved around her back and drew her inexorably against him, while the other hand continued to smooth over her sweater-clad chest.

“Why did you wear that damn bra?” he growled against her ear, and worried the lobe with his teeth.

“I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “I can still feel you through it.” And his inquisitive fingers proved his point.

“Reeves?” She was barely capable of speaking, so fine was the passionate web he had spun around her.

“Yes?”

“Reeves?” she breathed.

The echo of thudding footsteps came to them out of the darkness. An instant later they were aware of Helmut’s voice calling out, “Jordan, Reeves?”

They looked at each other and froze. Reeves was calm, cool, unaffected. He waited for her reaction. Jordan was alarmed. She didn’t feel any grand love for Helmut, but she didn’t want to hurt or humiliate him either. His personality couldn’t take such a blow. She jumped away from Reeves, straightening her clothing, and took a few hastening steps toward the direction of the voice. “We’re here, Helmut.”

“You were gone so long, I thought you might have lost your way,” he said humorously as he drew closer and soon stepped into a circle of light nearby.

“No, we…I was just telling Reeves one of the legends you told me about William Tell,” she said, lying badly.

Helmut, secure and confident of himself, didn’t notice the prevarication. “You must be cold, my dear. You’re shivering. Button up your coat. Perhaps we should see you home. Did you enjoy the tour, Reeves?”

There was an unendurable pause before he answered, and Jordan held her breath. She looked at him with pleading eyes and was startled to see the brittle emerald glare that pierced the darkness. “Yes,” he replied to Helmut’s question. “I found it most informative and entertaining. I can’t vouch for the veracity of everything Jordan told me. Some of the tales are just too outlandish.”

Her breath caught in her throat. He didn’t believe her!
Why?

Helmut chuckled. “I’ll admit that some of the fables about our local heroes are a bit farfetched.”

“Farfetched indeed,” Reeves said.

He left them at the end of the bridge, saying he preferred to walk the rest of the way to his hotel.

“Do you think you’ll have any problems?” Jordan asked the young man anxiously.

He smiled at her with cool confidence. “I think I can manage the shop in your absence, Mrs. Hadlock.”

He was an employee of Helmut’s who worked in one of the offices as an accountant. Last night, when Helmut had brought her home, he had informed her that she was to meet him and Reeves for breakfast the next day.

“We have quite an expedition planned. We’re going up on Pilatus—”

“Helmut,” she interrupted. “I have a business to run. You and Reeves will have to get along without me tomorrow.”

She was angry and upset with what had just happened on the bridge. Now she was being told she would have to suffer another day with the man who continued to ridicule and insult her. One moment she was pouring out her innermost feelings to him and he listened with seemingly sincere empathy. The next moment he was kissing her as though he’d die if he didn’t. Then, when she was quivering with a desire he had kindled, he abruptly spurned her, all but calling her a liar—and worse.

She’d had enough. She didn’t want to see him again, much less spend a day with him. “I won’t be able to go tomorrow,” she said firmly.

“Of course you will, darling,” Helmut countered with customary high-handedness. “I’m sending someone over to take care of your little shop for you. You needn’t worry about it. You’ll be able to play all day.”

His manipulation of her life was suddenly becoming intolerable. If he managed his fiancée like this, how would he treat a wife? His condescending remark about her “little shop” was insulting. She did a tremendous business. Her company held her shop up as the prototype for all the others. She was proud of the services she provided to English-speaking tourists. Why should he belittle it?

“I don’t want to be gone tomorrow, Helmut. I’m needed here,” she said stubbornly. “You may think that, compared to your conglomerate, this bookstore is nothing, but it’s very important to me.”

“Jordan, Jordan,” he said softly. “I’ve offended you and I’m sorry.” His tone of voice carried all the condescension of one speaking to a recalcitrant child. “Don’t be obtuse. Please, darling. If you don’t come with us, Reeves will think you don’t like him, or that you’re camera shy. When you become my wife, Jordan, you’ll be photographed constantly.”

Right then she should have told him that she had no intention of becoming his wife and calmly returned his ring. Instead her mind had locked in on what he had said about Reeves thinking she might not like him. Or that she was camera shy. He wouldn’t think that, but he might construe that she was a coward. If she didn’t go with them on these photographic sessions, he might think she was hiding from him out of shame or cowardice. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

“All right, Helmut,” she said absently as he kissed her neck in what he considered to be a stirring caress. “I’ll meet you tomorrow. Where and when?”

They had set the time and place and now she was giving the prompt accountant last-minute instructions. Ruefully, she thought that when she returned she would probably find that the sales for that day were higher than ever before and that the shop was in better shape than when she had left it.

She wended her way through the alleys carrying her fur ski parka. It was a bright, clear morning, but she knew that at the top of Mount Pilatus it would be much colder and she had come prepared. Her black corduroy jeans hugged her hips and legs tightly. The red sweater with the high, rolled collar was soft and clung to the gentle swell of her breasts. She had tucked a cap into the pocket of her parka in case she needed it on the mountaintop.

Helmut and Reeves were waiting for her at the appointed restaurant and they ate a hearty American breakfast. Jordan drank one cup of coffee and then indulged in a pot of chocolate lavishly topped with whipped cream.

The men were dressed as casually as she, though Helmut’s idea of “casual” was dress slacks, a sport coat, a cashmere sweater, and a sealskin overcoat. Reeves looked like he was about to ride the ranges of a cattle ranch, wearing everything a well-dressed cowboy needed except the hat. After he had finished eating and while they were waiting for Helmut’s cigarette to burn down, he checked his equipment.

He had greeted Jordan cordially when she arrived, following Helmut’s lead of kissing her on the cheek. This was Europe. Everyone kissed everyone else on the cheek. Helmut thought nothing of it. Indeed, he was glad that the American photojournalist obviously found his fiancée attractive.

But Jordan hadn’t taken the salutation lightly. Her heart stumbled around in her throat and she had to hold herself rigid to keep from swaying against Reeves as he pulled away.

Reeves, too, had exhibited extreme control. He had longed to pull her into his arms and kiss her fully on that appealing mouth. That fleeting taste of her had only acted as an appetizer and he was starved for more.

The trio created a slight commotion when they boarded the cable car at the base of Mount Pilatus. Helmut’s chauffeur ushered them through the crowd. Tourists and natives alike were intrigued by Reeves and his cameras and watched in fascination as the three situated themselves in one of the small cars. Reeves placed his equipment on one of the four chairs while Helmut and Jordan sat facing him.

“How long will we be in this car?” he asked, checking his light meter as he held it in front of their faces.

“About twenty minutes,” Helmut told him. “Then we get out at a station halfway up the mountain and take another, larger car, one that holds about forty people, the rest of the way to the summit. All in all, it takes about forty-five minutes.”

Reeves looked a little green around the gills as their car lurched forward. They were being hauled away from the ground and up the side of the mountain that stood sentinel over the city and the Lake of Lucerne.

Reeves switched lenses several times; he twirled the focus rings; he changed the filters that snapped onto the end of his lens; and the shutter clicked incessantly. And all the while he was talking to them, putting them at ease, making them forget that camera. Even as Jordan relaxed and began to behave normally, she was aware of his talent.

“You’re great subjects,” he commented as he put his camera back in the case after exchanging a new roll of film with a used one. “I’ll do some more when we get to the top.”

“Look behind you, Reeves,” Helmut said. “There’s a spectacular view of the lake. To your right you’ll see my château.”

Jordan thought he hesitated a moment before he looked behind him at the picture-book panorama of the city and the lake far below.

“Yeah, that’s beautiful,” Reeves said shakily as he whipped his head back around.

Jordan suppressed a giggle. He was afraid of heights! He didn’t look behind him again, but kept his eyes straight ahead, where the mountain loomed behind Helmut and her. Every once in a while they would hear a group of backpackers as they made their way up the mountain. Jordan would lean out the railing of the open-air car and wave to them, shouting greetings in several languages. Reeves remained as motionless as stone and gripped the edge of his chair.

They arrived at the midway point and had only a short wait for one of the larger cable cars. They filed aboard with the other sightseers and Helmut immediately headed for a position near the wide windows.

Reeves held back and clutched a pole in the center of the car. Jordan smiled as she stood with him. “You should have said you’re afraid of heights,” she teased.

“I’m not afraid. I’m petrified,” he admitted with a self-derisive laugh.

“We don’t have to go the rest of the way,” she said.

He looked out the window of the cable car toward the top of the mountain and gulped. Fog shrouded the summit, so that the frighteningly narrow cable, looking like a thread, disappeared into the cloud.

“No. I’ll be fine once we get on solid ground. It’s being suspended that I can’t stand.”

“But surely you fly all the time. How do you handle that?”

“Usually with a good belt of Scotch. Then I started reading about so many people getting plastered on airplanes that if an accident does occur they’re useless in trying to save themselves. Which is even more terrifying. So, I white-knuckle it.” He grinned boyishly. “Unless I have a hand to hold.”

He reached under the fur jacket she held in the crook of her arm and took her hand, squeezing it lightly. She returned the pressure and they smiled at each other. Reeves looked toward Helmut, who was chatting amiably with two young women, obviously wide-eyed tourists.

He leaned down to set his camera case on the floor of the cable car. When he straightened, he dextrously managed to whisk his lips across her cheek.

“Reeves!” she admonished softly. “Helmut.”

CHAPTER 5

H
e doesn’t watch you very carefully. Doesn’t he ever get jealous?”