The Kissing Stars (5 page)

“He was awake earlier, and we ate supper then.” She filled a glass from a pitcher and approached the bed. “He needs water most of all. If you’ll hold him up, I’ll try to get some down him. Then I want to change the bedding.”

Gabe appropriated the glass saying, “I’ll do it. You know, he might not be hungry, but I sure am. Think you could rustle me up some groceries while I water up the patient?”

Tess rubbed her eyes. Gabe’s manner made it obvious he didn’t intend to allow her to touch Andrew again. Fine. As long as her friend received the care he needed, she could use the help. Besides, she needed to put some distance between herself and the uninvited guest before she lost her composure. “I don’t cook here in Andrew’s house, but I do have makings for a sandwich in the back parlor. You’ll change his sheets?”

“I’ll take care of him. My word on it, Tess. As long as you feed me, that is. And while I’m eating, I want to hear about how the divorce never happened.”

The divorce. She would almost consider breaking quarantine to avoid speaking about her father’s lie and its aftermath.

She’d had plenty of time to think on the train ride through West Texas, and she had spent much of it analyzing her feelings where her husband was concerned. She’d been angry with Gabe for twelve long years, and it would take more than learning that her father had lied to him to erase it. True, in her grief she had pushed her husband away, but the man had displayed his feelings with his feet, had he not? He’d left, hadn’t stayed and fought for her, fought for them.

He hadn’t loved her enough, and she had paid a terrible price for it. A price she’d be hanged if she would speak of while short of sleep and holding onto her control by a corset string.

Sighing, she exited Andrew’s bedroom and took the outside path to the back parlor. Like all the homes here in Aurora Springs, the house Andrew normally shared with Colonel Jasper Wilhoit was built in an L-shape. In this case, an entry hall separated the two bedrooms in the front of the house. The parlor and bathroom stretched toward the back and were accessible from both the back porch and Jasper’s bedroom. For the length of the quarantine, Tess and the colonel had traded beds, and as Tess buttered bread for Gabe’s sandwich, she gazed longingly in that direction.

The oblivion of sleep sounded good right now. Ordinarily, Tess wasn’t one to run away from conflict, but the thought of slogging her way through both lies and truth with Gabe at this particular time made her shudder. Run from conflict? Shoot, she’d fly away if she could.

She made his sandwich, then placed it and a glass of buttermilk on a table. Then, once again eyeing Colonel Wilhoit’s feather mattress, she wondered if she dared lie down. She probably should return to the sickroom, but Gabe said he’d see to Andrew. She trusted him to keep his word.

She hadn’t done more than catnap for the past two days. He said he wanted to discuss the past and she would certainly need all her defenses.
For that I’m not ready
.

Tess all but dove for the bed.

FOR THE second time that day, Gabe found Tess sleeping. Fear slithered up his spine and he hurried to lay his hand against her forehead. Cool.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Tenderly he brushed straggling strands of hair away from her forehead, then, with a will of their own, his fingers slid into the thick, silken luster of her hair. So soft. So beautiful. Warm, flowing honey that glinted with hints of fire.

Without conscious thought, he gently pulled the hairpins free. Her tresses tumbled in a shimmering waterfall some of which he caught and lifted to his face. He knew the scent. Lavender and innocence. It swept him back to a time and place where the fragrance surrounded him by day. And by night.

THEY LAY side by side on a quilt spread across a mattress of spring green grass in a meadow bordered by fragrant pines. Above them, the moonless sky displayed the stars in frosty splendor. Today was Tess Rawlins’ fifteenth birthday and Gabe’s universe had just been sent reeling with a dismaying discovery.

His best friend Billy’s little sister made him horny.

Thank God it was dark.

He never dreamed anything this shocking would happen when he accepted Billy’s invitation to supper earlier this evening. He was going mainly for the birthday cake. Lila Mae Wilson cooked for the Rawlins, and she baked one mean devil’s food cake. Billy had promised Gabe an extra big slice.

The trouble started when Tess began opening her presents. Gabe was full as a tick on fried chicken and chocolate cake and feeling guilty that he hadn’t brought a gift. So he had tossed out an offer to teach her some star lore, and Tess had taken him up on the idea. Billy had come along with them—it wouldn’t be proper for Tess to meet Gabe alone—but he was propped up against a pine tree some ten feet away, sound asleep and sawing logs.

So here they were, he and the birthday girl, practically alone, her hair spilling against his shoulder and smelling like lavender. And him with a cock hard enough to drive a railroad spike.

Billy would kill him.

“I know the Big and Little Dippers,” Tess said, gesturing toward the sky. “Where’s Gemini the Twins? That’s my astrological sign, is it not?”

Gabe cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

“When is your birthday, Gabe? What’s your sign?”

He closed his eyes. “I just turned seventeen, myself. On May second. I’m Taurus, Taurus the Bull.”

And he knew he’d best find a distraction and get his pecker under control or he’d be one bull seeing red—red from his own bloody nose once Billy got through with him.

Stargazing. That’s what he needed to think about. Hadn’t the sky distracted him dang near every day of his life?

“You want me to show you Gemini. All right, Tess. Can you see my arm well enough to follow my finger?”

“I think so.”

He helped her locate the constellation she sought, then said, “The brighter of the twins is Pollux. The orange one, see it?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Pollux is also one end of the necklace of jewels the sky is sporting tonight. Look. It arcs from west-northwest and ends in the southeast. Five bright jewels.” He pointed to the stars as he named than. “Pollux, then Regulus, the blue-white star that’s the heart of Leo the lion. Then Mars, the middle jewel of the necklace. It’s the brightest.”

“Do you mean that yellowish orange star?”

Dang, but she had a sweet little voice. How come he’d never noticed it before? “Planet. That’s why it doesn’t twinkle.”

He sensed her inquiring stare. “If that’s Mars, why isn’t it red? I thought Mars was the red planet.”

“It appears more red when it’s closer to the earth.”

“Oh.”

“The fourth jewel is—”

“Let me guess,” she interrupted, catching his hand in one of hers while her free arm drew an arc from northwest to southeast “Is that it? That blue-white one? It’s like the first like Pollux.”

“Yep, Spica. It’s the brightest star in the constellation Virgo.” He inhaled a deep breath of lavender-scented air. Virgo the virgin. Tess the virgin.

He sat up abruptly. “The last jewel is just above the southeastern horizon. Look. It’s Antares, in the constellation Scorpio. The Scorpion.”

“Scorpions are red like that.”

“In this case, the name means ‘not Mars.’ They say the ancients who named it thought its color made it a rival of Mars. Natural competitors, I guess.”

Tess sat up, too, and when she lifted her face toward the sky, starlight cast a milky, luminous glow across her skin. Gabe swallowed hard.

Delight lit her voice. “A necklace made of stars. What a wonderful idea.” Giving his hand an innocent squeeze, she added, “I’ll never look at the stars in the same way again. You’ve given me the most wonderful birthday gift, Gabe. Thank you so very much.”

She leaned over to bestow the same sisterly peck on the cheek she always gave Billy, the same kiss she’d given Gabe a dozen times before. At the last minute, without stopping to think of how foolish an act it would be, he turned his head.

Their lips touched. They both froze.

Tess pulled back. Gabe pursued.

She sighed and surrendered, and Gabe decided that kissing Tess Rawlins was a sweeter treat than Lila Mae’s cake.

When she woke her brother a few minutes later and told Gabe a shy good-night, he realized he need not look above him to catch a last look at the distant suns.

Tess Rawlins had stars shining in her eyes. He reckoned a mirror would show him that his own were twinkling, too
.

FOURTEEN YEARS and a thousand heartbreaks later, Tess’s husband said softly, “But the light died, didn’t it, sweetheart? I killed it.”

He allowed her hair to slip through his fingers and spill down onto the pillow. “Now I need to know why you didn’t bury it.”

Why the hell hadn’t she divorced him? That question and others had plagued him ever since the fair. Had concern for public scorn stopped her? Possibly, but he doubted it. This was Texas, after all. Considering the land had been settled by miscreants and thieves, something like divorce didn’t carry the social stigma here that it did in other parts of the world. Still, he wanted her to tell him why she had not acted.

Another topic Gabe wanted to discuss was why her father turned her out after the fire. The very thought of it sent shivers running up Gabe’s spine and made him wish Stanford Rawlins was still alive so he could kill him. Tess had been all of seventeen years old at the time. Where had she gone? Who had helped her? Why hadn’t she come to him? She could have found him if she’d tried. The name change wouldn’t have stopped her for long because mutual friends had known where he was. They’d have told her if she’d asked.

You know the answer to that, Montana. She never wanted to see your sorry hide again. She told you that to your face. She hated you. Almost as much as you hated yourself
.

TESS AWOKE slowly, deliciously. Stretching, she inhaled a deep breath, filling her lungs with air. Fragrance teased her, a spicy, musky scent she associated with happiness, pleasure, and…Gabe.

With eyes closed she turned her face, seeking to hold onto the aroma, the dream. Humming with languid desire, she sank into her memories.

“
Someday I’m going to discover a new comet,” her beau said. “When I do, I’m going to name it after you.”

Tess glanced away from the telescope’s lens and shot Gabe a scolding glare. “Now you made me lose Saturn’s rings.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms. “You make me lose my head. If Billy or your father knew you sneaked out here to meet me like this, they’d have my liver for lunch.”

She rose up on her tip-toes to press a quick kiss against his lips. “Let’s not fight about this tonight, please? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“We’re coming awfully darned dose, though. And it is wrong to lie to your family. I can hardly look Billy in the eyes anymore.”

“Gabe, not tonight. It’s my seventeenth birthday and I don’t want to spend our time together bickering.”

Silence dragged out. She felt his resistance, and then his surrender as the source of his tension changed. “Really? And how do you want to spend it, Venus?”

In answer, she tugged his head down to hers. Their lips met, clung together. That familiar, delicious fire began zinging through her blood.

Together, they sank to the pillow of green grass. Gabe guided her gently down onto her back, his mouth leaving hers to nibble its way down her neck. His nimble fingers worked the buttons at her bodice, then slipped inside to caress her bare skin. “No chemise again, Tess? Naughty girl.

She moaned, as his hands smoothed across her breasts, cupping and kneading. Tess arched her back, offering, craving to be suckled. His mouth closed around her nipple and she cried out with pleasure
.

Not the memory of pleasure.

Here and now, God-it’s-been-so-long-and-it-feels-like-heaven bliss.

This wasn’t a dream anymore.

Tess froze. The familiar scent. The heated weight of a hard body atop hers. The rasp of bare skin against bare skin.

Gabe Cameron was really in her bed.

Keeping her eyes dosed, she took a minute to consider what to do. A long, lovely, minute during which he switched to the other breast. She seriously considered stretching her internal reflection to five or maybe even ten minutes. A half an hour would be splendid.

Her dress lay tangled around her waist. By touch she determined he sported nothing more than cotton drawers. She tried hard to summon up a little shame. She failed. From the very beginning, she’d been bold where Gabe was concerned. She had loved him with every fiber of her being, and she’d never considered what they did together wrong.

But then was then and now was now. A dozen years had passed. He wasn’t the same man, nor she the same woman. This couldn’t be love; it had to be lust.

It had to be.

And oh, how she wanted to give in to the weakness.

But she shouldn’t. Nothing between them was settled. Indulging in lust today wouldn’t be honest. It might belittle the memory of their love, and those memories were too precious to taint.

Regretfully, Tess realized she couldn’t take the risk.

She opened her eyes and faced the moment, or more precisely, she faced the thick mahogany waves atop Gabe’s head. Her fingers itched to slide through his hair, but instead she pushed against his shoulders and affected outrage. “What do you think you are doing?”

Gabe slowly lifted his head. His gray eyes watched her with that heavy-lidded, sleepily aroused look she remembered so well. So many times during the few months they lived together they had awakened in the process of making love, one of them having reached for the other in his or her dreams. Now he gave her a drowsy, sexy smile and pain twisted through her. Oh, but she had missed that particular grin. “Wake up, Gabe. What are you doing in my bed?”