Possessions (50 page)

“I'm sorry ,” Katherine said. “I didn't realize . . . So much has been happening and I've been selfish, only thinking of myself instead of spending time with you.”

“But you must be selfish! Don't you understand, the more you do, the more pleasure you have, the more successful you are, the more of everything I have. I did think
that
was obvious! Now, my dear”—she patted Katherine's hand—“be off and have a wonderful day. If you're too late for dinner, I will entertain the various offspring, but I'll expect a full report tomorrow. Every detail.”

Katherine bent to kiss her forehead. “Every one.”

“I hope not,” Ross laughed when Katherine repeated the conversation as they drove through a mountain valley. “It's a bad precedent.”

“Why? If it's all she has—”

“Did she say that?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“All she said was she wants to be part of our lives because it makes her feel less old and limited. Katherine, Victoria is the majority stockholder in the Hayward Corporation and she sits on four other boards of directors, helping manage and raise funds for some of the most powerful institutions in San Francisco. That's hardly a picture of a helpless little old lady lying like a crumpled piece of tissue paper while the busy world passes her by.”

Involuntarily, Katherine smiled. “Hardly.” Her face grew thoughtful. “But she wasn't really lying.”

He shook his head. “Bending the truth. She's intelligent and wily enough to know that the one thing her wealth can't do is slow down the years, so she uses whatever means she has to hold on to parts of the world she can no longer experience directly. Like the Vesubie. It's all right, you know; it's a benign form of tyranny.”

Katherine looked at him. “That's not kind.”

“It's accurate,” he said simply. “She's using our love for her to make us feel responsible, to keep her at the center of our lives, even though she knows that's impossible—ultimately we'll have to pass her by. But she tries. And I admire her
persistence, and love her deeply, but I have no intention of telling her everything that fills my time. And if you do, and I see you whip out a pencil to take notes to report to her”—Katherine began to laugh—“I'll probably become silent and quite possibly immobile. Whereas, if you agree with me, I will take your hand, so, and hold it while I get us through the Brevera Valley.”

He took his eyes from the road for a split second, to share her smile, then, holding her hand firmly in his, he drove slowly along the narrow road that looped back and forth as it climbed through the mountains. The scenery grew wilder and they were silent, awed by the maze of deep, shadowed gorges separated by sunlit meadows. Twisted trees clung to the rocky slopes, while in the meadows pines grew amid boulders that crashed from above each spring when melting snows set off avalanches. The air turned cool and Katherine pulled on her sweater. As the atmosphere thinned, the farthest craggy mountains came into sharp relief. And then they drove into the Turini Forest—dim, cool, dense with huge trees and twisted undergrowth.

Ross kept going on the zigzagging road until they rounded a curve and came upon the tiny village of La Bollene-Vesubie, where he pulled the car to a stop. “The backpacks are in the trunk. From here on, we hike.”

From the village, the trail climbed rapidly through forests and meadows, leaving the last vestiges of civilization behind. The air was chilly but as they climbed, they were almost too warm in their sweaters. Once Katherine leaped from one boulder to another, weightless; when she landed lightly, bending her knees to cushion her fall, Ross held out his hand and she took it, sharing with a smile the joy of their isolation. They hiked for an hour, pushing through bushes, jumping across streams, following a trail that sometimes disappeared among rock outcroppings or underbrush, and reappeared farther on. They barely spoke, except to point out, now and then, a soaring bird haloed in gold against the blue sky, tangled skeins of brilliant wildflowers weaving about gray boulders with orange, gray, and black lichen covering their north sides, wide pastures smooth as velvet, the flick of an animal on the trail, and over everything the crystalline air and vast silence, broken only by the piercing songs of birds.

The sun moved higher, warming the sheltered valley. They
stuffed their sweaters in their backpacks, moving on into a landscape less rugged, trees and bushes shimmering in the dazzling sun, until at last Ross said, “I don't know about you, but I'm famished. If you see a good spot—”

“There!” Katherine exclaimed, pointing as they came to the crest of a small ridge. “Just waiting for us.”

They clambered down the slope to a grassy nook protected on three sides by high rock formations. Nearby, a stream widened into a clear blue-green pool before narrowing again and disappearing among the trees. “The old swimming hole,” Ross murmured. He looked at Katherine, eyebrows raised. “What do you think?”

“I think it will be freezing and we ought to try it.”

He laughed. “You're wonderful.” Dropping his backpack on the soft grass, he seemed not to notice the flush on her face and the brightness of her eyes. “Right away, don't you think? Better to do it before we eat.”

Katherine set her backpack next to his. “I'll beat you in. Unless you feel it's a man's job to test the waters.”

“It's a man's job to know when to let the woman go first.”

Laughing, she disappeared behind a cluster of pine and chestnut trees. But as soon as she pulled off her shirt and khaki pants and felt the sun burning on her bare skin, she was swept with a dizzying surge of desire and anticipation, and reached out to steady herself against a tree. The rough bark was solid, deeply textured, and she clung to it, aware of Ross, close by, as if she could feel him as sharply as she felt the bark of the tree. I didn't know, she thought. I didn't know how much I wanted him. But deep in this valley, cut off from distractions and carefully constructed reasons, protected in the sunlit niche from the cool air beyond the rock walls, she knew that all their days together had led to this one, and that Ross knew it too.

The dizziness was gone. Katherine left her clothes on a rock and, in silk underpants and brassiere, slipped from the cluster of trees to the wild grass bordering the pool. She did not see Ross, but rather than give herself a chance to think twice, she took a breath and made a shallow dive into the clear water.

She gasped in the shock of the icy cold. Every cringing muscle seemed to curl into a tight defensive knot. “Once,” she gasped aloud. “Once across, then out.” In a strong crawl, kicking hard, she cut through the mirror images of trees that
seemed to grow down from the surface, and reached the other side, where she grasped a low-hanging branch, pulled herself out of the water and, shivering in the shade, turned to look for Ross

Across the pool, the water broke into a long wake. Katherine heard his shout as the cold struck him, and she watched him swim toward her with powerful strokes, bursting through the water to grab the same branch she had used. “I'll race you back,” he panted.

“I thought I'd walk around,” she said through chattering teeth.

“Sensible. No risk of losing.”

“Oh—!” Without warning, she dove back in and kicked away from the shore, leaving Ross in a fury of droplets.

“Unfair!” he yelled, and followed, within a moment pulling even with her. Her lips were blue, he saw, but her body was strong and sinuous in the frigid water. They swam together until he gave a final spurt and finished half a length ahead of her.

“You're wonderful,” he said again as they staggered from the water. Exulting, they laughed through numb lips. “Do we have any towels?” She shook her head. “Damn. Poor planning. Sit here; I'll see what I can find.”

She leaned against a warm rock. The molten sun dried her almost instantly, but her skin was still covered with small bumps from the cold that seemed to have soaked into her bones. Staring vacantly at the deceptive, sun-sparkled pool, she thought of nothing at all, but there was an image in her mind, like a photograph, of the two of them, swimming side by side with matched strokes.

“One towel,” Ross said, returning. “Wrapped around the wine. Not very big, but enough to share.” He looked down at her. His muscles quivered from the cold that pervaded him, but he stood still, gazing at her. “My God,” he breathed. “You are so lovely.”

Katharine's thought stirred and she saw herself as he did: half-lying on the grass in transparent wet underclothes. Brushing her dripping hair from her eyes, she made a move to stand up. “No,” Ross said and, kneeling, he began to dry her hair with the towel.

“The sun . . .” Katherine murmured. “It will dry—”

“I know.” Holding the towel, his hand moved rhythmically, caressing her hair in long strokes and then her neck and shoulders. She was beginning to feel warm again. From Ross's own drenched hair, a drop of water fell like an icicle on her breast and she flinched. He laughed shakily. “Dangerous . . .” With a swift motion he ran the towel over his hair, then, bending down, put his lips to the spot on her breast. For a long moment they stayed that way, barely breathing, engulfed in sunlight, their flesh beginning to glow, as if, at last, the sun ran through their veins.

“Katherine,” Ross murmured. “My God, how many times I've said your name to myself . . . dearest, lovely Katherine.” He pulled off her wet brassiere and pants and Katherine put her hands on his soaked cotton underpants and pushed them off. They lay on the fragrant grass, bodies burning hot, cool where their wet clothes had been, and Ross slid his arm beneath Katherine's shoulders and brought his open mouth down to hers.

They held the kiss, prolonging it, letting their desire grow, letting it flow through them, like the sun. Katherine's arms kept Ross close. “I thought of this,” she said, her lips against his, “before I went in the water. I wanted you—”

“I thought of this in Paris,” he said. And then, lying on her softness and delicate strength, he felt her legs part for him and he thrust into her, into the darkness of her body while sunlight spun in brilliant wheels behind his closed eyes and Katherine whispered his name in the clear mountain air.

*  *  *

There was so much to say they chose silence, lips meeting in small kisses as they lay quietly, Katherine's head on his shoulder, one of Ross's legs lying across hers, its heaviness as pleasurable as their caresses. Ross moved his palm slowly up the curve of her hip to her breasts, brushing the nipples, and then to her throat and face, as if sketching the lines and textures of her body; and Katherine lightly slid her hand along his back to his shoulders and muscled arms, and stopped with her fingertips in the blond hair of his chest. She raised herself on one elbow, looking down into his dark eyes. “I feel so greedy,” she said, embarrassed.

“Not greedy,” he said, and smiled at her, the sun running through his veins. “Alive, marvelous, part of me . . .” He
kissed the fullness of her breasts, taking her taut nipples into the warmth of his mouth.

A long sigh came from deep within Katherine, freeing the last of the hungers and fears she had restrained for so long. Everything was all right; everything was wonderfully right between them. She was filled with a joy that was like the sun, warming her after she had been so cold, and the joy sang within her as Ross's mouth moved from her breasts to her stomach. “You taste like pine trees,” he murmured, his mouth on her soft skin. “And wild clover and mountain streams.” A heavy languor held her still, while his touch swept through her in widening ripples; he was everywhere a part of her, surrounding her, and she felt herself press against the earth, melting, open, waiting, as his hands parted her thighs and his tongue whispered against her.

The touch, sharp and soft, leaped through Katherine's body; a low moan escaped her and she dissolved into feeling as his tongue moved lightly, exploring, pushing inside her—
alive, marvelous, part of me
—until she felt herself draw together, like a flower curling to hold within its petals the golden liquid of the sun. She drew together to one blazing point until it was too great to be contained and with a cry, her body arching, Katherine felt it burst, spinning through her veins, then slowly fading away.

They lay together, and kissed. For a moment Katherine drowsed in the sun, and then they murmured together about dressing, eating, hiking back—but instead they looked at each other through half-closed eyes in the brightness and let their bodies waken in a long embrace. “If I could take you onto me,” Ross said. “And hold you there . . .”

“Yes,” Katherine said. “Yes.” And when his hands went to her hips, she moved on top of him.

His arms enfolded her so tightly her breasts were crushed against his chest, her face buried in the curve of his neck and shoulder. Stirring, she raised her head so her lips could make tiny kisses along his neck. “Your skin is so warm,” she murmured. “Hard and smooth and warm—and I can kiss your heartbeat here—” She kissed the hollow of his throat and then his mouth, open and as demanding as hers.

He lifted her and Katherine sat astride him, lowering herself upon him, feeling him slide upward, filling her. She smiled
down on him, his dark blond hair still damp, his deep-set, dark eyes as warm as the sun, his lips curving on her name.

“. . . lovely, magnificent woman,” he murmured. His hands held her breasts, his palms against her erect nipples as their bodies found a rhythm as perfect as the one they had found in the water. Katherine bent over Ross again, her dark hair falling in a curtain about their faces as their mouths met and clung and they moved together, faster, merged in a haze of sunlight and pure feeling, faster still, climbing, to the narrow peak of a mountain against a clear sky, until, together, they leaped free and, trembling, came gradually to earth.