A Love for All Time (18 page)

“How long will you be gone?”

“Five or six days. You’ll be all right here. Aunt Bea is just next door and I heard Marge say she was coming out.”

“Are you sure I should stay? I’d rather go home to my apartment,” she said hesitantly. “I don’t think Hank is too keen on me being here. It’s occurred
to me that he and Helen had something in mind for you and her sister, Lucy.”

“Helen had something in mind. I won’t deny it.” Casey felt the chuckle in his chest. “Your coming on the scene has put a stop to that, thank God!”

“But Hank?”

“Hank is a ‘wait and see’ man. He never makes snap decisions. His life is the mill and his kids. I don’t mean that his life with Helen isn’t happy. She’s a good wife to him because she asks only for time for her committee meetings and golf and makes few demands on his time, leaving him time for his hobby … work. He’s a workaholic. Fred and I see the mill as a challenge, a way to make a living. We get satisfaction out of providing jobs so other men can make a living, too, but the mill isn’t our whole life as it is Hank’s.” She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was serious. “Fred’s life is Marge. He loves her to distraction. Always has. I don’t know if he could take it if anything happened to her.”

Casey raised her head cautiously. “You sound as if something could happen to her.”

“She hasn’t been … well. It was her idea to have five children. She’s the proverbial mother.”

“She looks healthy,” Casey said, seeing in her mind’s eye the laughing dark eyes and cheerful smile.

“I think she is, now. I’m glad you got on well with her. She’s sort of special to me.” He shifted Casey so that she lay across his lap. “Enough of that. Isn’t it a good feeling to be alone here in our house?”

“You mean you like it better than in the wagon or on the barge, or at Camelot?” she teased and rubbed her fingertips lightly across his cheek.

“I like it better because it’s now,” he growled and kissed her nose before setting his lips against her mouth. His kiss was urgent from the beginning, a demanding heat in the movement of his mouth, a flaring hunger, which she met with a hunger of her own. His hands traveled softly down her body. “I love touching your warm nakedness,” he whispered. “It’s only then that I feel you truly give yourself to me. Let’s go to bed, sweetheart.” As his mouth moved over her face, pressing gently against the scar, she felt the urgency growing inside them both.

“Dan, darling, we shouldn’t…”

“When are you due?” His whisper came thickly against her lips.

“Three days. But…”

“Let’s chance it, sweetheart.” His heart was pounding against hers and there was a fine dew of perspiration on his forehead. “Unless you want me to …”

She rolled off his lap and got to her feet. Her arms encircled his waist when he stood beside her. “No,” she said against his neck. “Give me a few minutes.”

In her room she stood with her back to the door. “He’s right to want to get married,” she said aloud. “He’ll make a marvelous husband and father. It’s
me
I have doubts about. Will I be miserable if the marriage is less than perfect?” She took her
nightgown from the drawer, went into the bathroom, and shut and locked the door.
He deserves so much more than a woman who has serious doubts a marriage will work, a woman who has been less than honest with him about the accident. Will he realize what he feels for me is pity when he learns that he was not responsible for the scars on my body? Oh, damn! I love him so much I don’t think I could bear to see revulsion on his face
.

In the mirror her eyes were wide and darkly brilliant, and the girl she saw reflected there looked like a stranger. She had known this new Casey with the scarred face and dark circles beneath her eyes for only a short time. Abruptly she turned away and forced herself to be calm. She slipped into her prim nightgown and brushed her hair, arranging it to cover the scar, and dabbed cologne on her wrists and temples. She went back into the bedroom half expecting Dan to be there, but the room was empty. After turning out all the lights except the one on the table beside the bed, she turned back the covers and slipped between the smooth sheets.

When he came, it was silently. The door was pushed back and he was there in the doorway. All he was wearing was brief, white jockey shorts, the white a startling contrast against his sun-bronzed body. He leaned casually against the door, his dark eyes on her face. She watched him walk toward her in all his natural splendor. He was an extraordinarily masculine man; broad shoulders, trim hips, long legs.

He sat down next to her on the bed, and kissed her.

“You’re a beautiful man.” She said it very softly, and ran her palm over his cheek. “You’ve showered and shaved and you smell good, too.”

He smiled at her in amusement and bent forward for a rapid kiss. “I want everything to be just right when I make love to m’lady.”

She slipped her arms about his neck. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get on with it, my man.”

He took her hands and held them against his chest and looked down at her with a smile in his deep, dark eyes. Then he stood, hooked his thumbs in the top of his shorts, pushed them down, and stepped out of them. He stood before her, proud and indifferent to his nakedness, walked to the other side of the bed and lifted the covers.

Casey swallowed the large lump blocking her throat and fumbled with the switch on the lamp, finally succeeding in plunging the room into darkness. She felt Dan hesitate, then he was moving across the bed toward her. His arm slipped beneath her and pulled her over until she lay against his chest. His hand worked at the gown until he could reach her bare buttocks and knead them gently with his flattened palm.

“Why did you do that?” He was nuzzling the side of her neck under her hair. The tip of his tongue stroked the soft skin beneath her ear.

“What?” she quavered. It was hard to articulate anything in this position. He had spread his thighs and she lay between them.

“Did the sight of my nakedness bother you?” His voice was barely a whisper.

“No.” She sought his lips so she wouldn’t have to say more.

His lips settled on her mouth and he kissed her long and tenderly while his fingers stroked the softness of her inner thighs. Then his mouth trailed across her cheek to her ear and teased it with darting tongue and soft, warm breath. His hands worked the gown up and over her head and he flung it from him almost angrily.

“I hate that thing!” She lay on top of him, her breasts nestled firmly against the dark hair of his chest, her flat belly against him, the cradle of her femininity tightly pressed against the mass of dark hair at his groin. “I want to see you when I make love to you.”

Fear stabbed through Casey causing her to stiffen.
There was reproach in his voice!
“No … not tonight. Please, darling.”

His arms and his legs folded about her, holding her closer. He was still and silent for a long while, then he rolled over and pinned her beneath him. She closed her eyes tightly, her heart hammering with dread.
Would he flip on the light?
With a strength garnered from panic she locked her arms about his neck and pressed her mouth urgently to his, kissing him with all the passion born from the thought of dying desire if he should turn on the light and see her scarred body.

“You know it can’t always be like this,” he whispered
while stroking her temple with his fingers. “I want unconditional acceptance, which means you love me enough to allow me full access to your body and mind. I want us to be truly one, my Clementine, with no secrets between us … ever.”

Casey didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. Tears coursed from the corners of her eyes till they disappeared in the hair above her ears. Dan’s finger stopped one rivulet and his lips sipped the tears from her other cheek.

“Sweetheart?” he whispered solicitously. “Don’t cry. It’s not a problem we have to solve tonight. And it’s not an insurmountable one anyway.” He rolled with her again and brought her up to lay across his chest. “You’re always on the defensive, my love. But never mind that, now. We’ll talk about it when I come back.”

The pain in Casey’s breast swelled with alarming intensity. “Give me just a little time,” she said shakily. Silently, she cried, Oh, Lord, will this be the last time I’ll be with him like this? In a frenzy she began to kiss and caress him.

When he could free his mouth, he laughed softly. “Don’t rush the fence, my Cleopatra of the Nile, my little sexpot.” His lips covered hers lightly, his tongue caressing the corners of her mouth with a velvet touch. “The best sex is soft and sweet and long. We have the night and I intend to use it all making soft, sweet love to you.”

Eleven

D
an turned to
look at her in the silence of the big car. For a moment there was worry in his eyes. “You’ll be all right, won’t you?”

Casey nodded quietly, and then let out a small sigh. Her eyes found his. “I’ll be fine, but I’ll miss you terribly.”

“I’ll miss you, too.”

“Will they take you to one of those Geisha houses?” There was a teasing sparkle in her eyes as she studied his profile.

“Would you mind?” He grinned in that endearing way of his.

“I’d mind … like hell!”

He laughed happily and reached for her hand as he took the turn off for the airport where he would board the commuter plane for Portland.

“Aunt Bea will look after you. If you find you don’t want to stay alone at night, she’ll come over and sleep in Mother’s room.”

“I know. She told me. I won’t mind being alone. Besides, I’ll have Sadie. She’d bark if someone strange came around.”

“She’d do that all right. I told Fred to stop by a few times.”

Casey looked at him in surprise. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because I want to make sure you’re okay, my Guinevere.”

“Thanks for your concern, but it seems silly to bother Fred. You’ll only be gone five days.”

“I’m sure they’ll be the longest five days of my life.” He pulled her hand to his lips and gently kissed the tips of her fingers. “I wish you were going with me.”

“So do I.”

He pulled into the parking. “Coming in?”

She shook her head. “I hate public good-byes.” She was terrified she would break down and cry when he left her. “What time does your plane leave?”

“I’ll have about an hour after I get to the Portland airport.”

“Don’t work too hard? And … you’ll take care of yourself?”

He smiled at her tenderly. “I won’t and … I will.”

He put his arm around her and held her close. She put her arms around him and squeezed her eyes shut. She had come to depend on him so much during the last few weeks. She needed him more than he could possibly know.

“Don’t forget that I love you, Clementine.”

“I love you, too.”

“You’re sure you can find your way back home?” She nodded and he kissed her hard. “It’s time to go.”

He got out of the car and took his case from the back seat. Casey moved over under the wheel. He leaned through the car window for another quick kiss.

“I love you.” She wasn’t sure she had even said it aloud.

He turned and strode into the terminal without a backward glance or a wave. She watched until he disappeared, her own words,
I love you
, echoing in her head. She sat there until the small blue plane took off, circled the airfield, and headed northwest.

Casey spent a peaceful afternoon in the small upstairs room with her sewing machine. She had found a knit shirt in Dan’s closet and cut a newspaper pattern from it. She giggled when she pulled
the fabric with the broad stripes from among her supply of materials and for just a second considered making the shirt from it. But she wanted this shirt to be special so she chose a length of colonial blue knit. The pieces she cut were large and easy to work with and the shirt went together like a dream. The garment was completed, except for the white collar she would add later, when she heard Sadie bark, and a car door slam.

She peeked out the window, then ran down to open the door.

“Hi, Fred.”

“How’er ya doin’, Casey?”

“Fine. How’s Marge?”

“Fine.” He laughed. “Now we’ve got the preliminaries over with, what’ve you got cold to drink?”

Casey laughed and waved him into the kitchen. She liked Fred. This was his third visit since Dan had been gone and they went through the same singsong monologue each time he arrived.

“How about a beer?”

“Sounds great. Marge said to tell you she would be over tomorrow. It’s nursery school day for Jayne.”

Casey took a frosted glass from the freezer and a can of beer from the refrigerator. “You don’t need to come by here every day, Fred. I’m doing just fine.”

“No trouble, Casey. It’s just a little out of my way.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s the least I can do for my little brother.”

“Little?” She laughed with him and sat down.

He suddenly sobered. “Do you love him, Casey? Really love him?” It was the first personal question he had asked her.

She looked at him for a long moment. “Yes. I do,” she said quietly.

Gently, he reached over and patted her hand. “I’m glad. I’m so damn glad!” He gulped his drink and got to his feet. “I can’t stop by tomorrow. I’ll be down south at the logging camp all day.” She walked with him through the house. At the door he grinned at her and the grin was so much like Dan’s that her heart skipped a beat. “He called today. Said to tell you he misses you.”

“Fred! For Pete’s sake! Why didn’t you tell me that right away? Did he say the work was going well?”

“Oh, yes. He’ll be leaving on schedule. Should be in day after tomorrow.”

“He said he would call from Portland and let me know what time to pick him up.” Casey thought as she stood on the steps and watched Dan’s brother drive away. A couple of days and Dan would be back! What happened after that would just have to happen; she couldn’t live with this sense of dread any longer.

When Marge came the next day Casey showed her the shirt. “Do you think he’ll like it?”

“He’ll love it, if for no other reason than you
made it for him. He’s really gone on you, Casey. I never imagined Dan would fall so hard, but I should’ve realized he would when he met the right woman. He and my Fred are so much alike.”