Jenny Cussler's Last Stand (28 page)

The tall figure paused at the water’s edge, and Jenny had an awful feeling he intended to do as she had...toss the shoes and step into the water. That meant he wasn’t going away soon.

She could barely make out the shape. It appeared to be a man, and a man with long hair, at that. Jenny swallowed hard. Not only did he appear to kick shoes off, but he pulled off a shirt and bent to lower his trousers.

He stepped into the water and dove in. As he did so, Jenny recognized him. Hadn’t she dreamed of him every waking—and sleeping—hour for the past few days?

Chapter Nineteen

Clint dove into the chilly water and turned over on his back to stare up at the darkening sky while he floated. The moon had not yet risen. The night had grown chilly, but not cool enough to calm down his racing heart. His visions in the sweat had been abnormally stimulating...not the calm serenity that he usually enjoyed under the spell of the barley-scented steam.

In the darkness of the lodge, under the intense heat of the second round of the sweat, Jenny’s face had come to him...pale, wide-eyed, her red hair wet and curly, hanging down her back. In the dream, she swam around him...naked...her skin glowing in the water as if lit from within.

Clint dunked his head under the water. Thank goodness it had been dark in the sweat lodge.

In his vision, he’d swum after her in the water, but she eluded him, laughing while she swam near and then darted away. He couldn’t catch her, but every aching impulse in his body begged him to pull her into his arms. Still, she remained just out of his reach, a small smile playing on her lips. Soft, full lips that begged him to kiss her.

Clint found the sand beneath his feet and stood abruptly, the shallow water hugging his waist. He swept the excess water from his hair and rubbed his face with vigor. Nothing was helping. He couldn’t get the vision from his mind.

A soft splash behind him caught his attention, and he turned abruptly. Someone swam toward him, pale skin still visible in the waning light. His throat constricted. Could his vision be coming real? Or was he still dreaming?

He reached out to catch the figure who swam near, the feminine skin soft and cold. He pulled her into his arms, and she pressed against him.

“Jenny,” he groaned. If this were a dream, he was happy to follow it to its conclusion.

“Clint. I knew it was you,” she whispered as she clung to him, her arms wrapped around his neck. “I was going to hide, but I can’t seem to stay away from you.” A tremor ran through her body. “Hold me. I’m cold.”

Clint wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down into the water to their necks. He kissed her cold, wet lips and warmed them with his own. She climbed onto his lap as he bent his knees, and he rained kisses down on her face, her neck, in the hollow of her throat.

“Jenny, you’re driving me crazy. I don’t know what to do about you.” Clint ground the words out against her mouth.

“Me? Look what you’re doing to me!” Jenny pulled away for a moment to look at him. Terrified she would swim away, he found her mouth again and willed her to stay with him. She spoke against his lips. “I don’t know what to do about you either, Clint. And I don’t want to think about it right now.”

Clint lifted his head to look at the willing woman in his arms. She’d apparently gone swimming in her clothes, and he could think of nothing else but removing the barrier between them.

“Now, Jenny, now.” He couldn’t help begging her, so completely did he want to join with her.

“Now, Clint.” To his utter joy, she nodded.

Clint rose from the water with Jenny in his hands and made his way to the shore. He set her down gently on a mossy mound near the water’s edge in the shelter of a tree, and held her against his warm body while he removed her wet clothing with shaking fingers...though he hardly felt cold.

With the last garment gone, Clint covered her with his body and hesitated.

“Now, Clint,” she said as she pulled him to her.

Accompanied by the murmur of the nearby river and the occasional trill of a night bird, Clint made sweet, tender love to Jenny.

****

Clint awoke to the taste of Jenny’s lips on his mouth. He opened his eyes and smiled as she pulled her head back and regarded him. The moon shone on her smooth skin. She nestled in his arms, her legs entwined with his, his body warmed by her skin and his clothing, which he’d thrown over them in the night.

The touch of her lips on his brought his body to a state of instant delight, and he pulled her tightly into his arms.

“Clint, we can’t,” she chuckled against his neck. “We have to get dressed and get back. It will be light soon.”

Clint shook his head and spoke softly against her ear.

“No, don’t say that. I don’t want this night to ever end.” He kissed her ear and heard a soft responding moan.

“I know how you feel,” she whispered. Clint covered her mouth with his and molded her body to his. He ignored the faint glow of light blue on the horizon...just for a little while longer. To his delight, Jenny welcomed him once again, matching his passion with her own.

In a short while, sated, they both lay back and listened to the sound of the running water as they caught their breath. Clint willed the night to go on and on and on. He dreaded the light of day when Jenny might look at him one more time as the brown-skinned Indian boy. He ground his teeth against the question he longed to ask. Could she ever love him?

“Jenny,” he started. He cleared his throat against the huskiness in his voice.

“Yes?” she said. She turned to face him and raised her face to his.

“Well...” He cleared his throat again. A constriction in his chest made it difficult to breathe.

“What is it, Clint?”

“I don’t know how to say this...”

He felt Jenny’s body stiffen in his arms, and he bit his lips. He shouldn’t have started. He couldn’t bear to feel her withdraw. She did it so easily.

“You don’t have to say anything, Clint. This was just a one-time thing. Don’t worry!” She pulled away and started to rise, but Clint pulled her back into his arms.

“Jenny! Wait! Listen to me!” She struggled against him, but he held fast.

“What?” she whispered harshly, her arms wrapped around her chest.

“
This
was
not
a one-time thing for me, missie! I love you, and I don’t want to lose you. There! I’ve said it. I love you. The Indian boy is in love with a white girl!”

Jenny jerked back and stared at him, her eyes wide. Clint closed his eyes against what he might see. Scorn, ridicule? Not likely, not from Jenny! Apprehension, disappointment, regret? He didn’t want to know.

“Why would you say that?” she said.

Clint opened his eyes cautiously. The flash in her eyes startled him. Anger?

“Which part? The love part? Losing you?”

Her eyes softened, and she put a playful fist to his chin.

“No, silly! The Indian-boy-and-white-girl thing. Why would you say that?”

A restless energy drove Clint to a sitting position. Jenny rose to her knees beside him, pulling her still damp clothing against her to block his view of the body he loved.

He shook his head and looked away. Dawn was indeed lurking just around the corner.

“I don’t know. Some hang-up from childhood, I guess.”

A soft hand touched his cheek, and he couldn’t help turning his face into her palm.

“What kind of a hang-up?” she pressed.

He didn’t want to talk about his mother...not here...not right now. He pushed back his loose hair and shook his head again.

“I know what made me say it, but I don’t really want to talk about it now. I just want to be with you. I don’t want anything to come between us.”

Jenny reached up to kiss his cheek, and he turned his face to hers, capturing her lips.

“I love you, too, Clint. Madly, crazily.”

Clint pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair.

“I’m going to hold you to that, Jenny Cussler. You better mean it.”

“I do.”

“Good.” He cupped her face and bent his forehead to hers. “Good,” he repeated with a slight nod.

“Good,” she mimicked with a shaky grin.

Clint dropped his eyes to the clothes Jenny clutched against her and raised his eyebrows suggestively, but Jenny pulled away with a shaky laugh.

“Are you kidding? The sun is coming up! We have to get dressed before someone comes down here.”

“I know,” he sighed. He ran a fingertip down the side of her cheek to the hollow of her throat. “We’ve got to get to group.” He laughed and jabbed a thumb towards his chest. “Well,
I’ve
got to get to group. I guess you can just skip class like you did yesterday, teacher’s pet!”

“I’m not going to skip class, Teach,” she said with a grin. “I’ll be there.” She turned her back to slip on her clothing while Clint went to retrieve his own clothing from the riverbank.

“Two more days left. The powwow is tomorrow night.” He bent to pull on his blue jeans and caught a glimpse of Jenny staring at him. He blushed and grinned, suddenly modest.

“I’ve never seen your hair down. I dreamed of what you would look like,” she admitted as he approached, his shirt in hand.

He pulled her fully clothed though slightly damp body into his arms, reveling in the feel of her, pliant against him, thrilled that she gave herself to him willingly. She wrapped her hands in his hair, and he shuddered from renewed pleasure.

“Believe me.
I
dreamed of what you looked like, as well. Often!” he emphasized as he held her tight.

“I hope I didn’t disappoint, Clint. I’m not a young girl.”

“I don’t want a young girl, honey, I just want you.” He squeezed her so tightly she thought her ribs would crack...and she knew happiness.

“I love you, Clint. I don’t think I can say it enough.”

“You can’t say it enough for me. I’ll never get tired of hearing it. I just hope you don’t ever get tired of saying it.”

He had a fleeting image of muttering the words to Jenny’s departing back while he sat at a kitchen table in a strange apartment and searched the want ads for a job, but he quickly dismissed the image. He loved her. That was all that mattered. Love was enough!

****

As Jenny walked away, she had a quick image of saying the same words while she washed dishes at the cracked kitchen sink of one of the small ramshackle, rusted, single-wide trailers she’d seen in the valley down below, but she quickly dismissed the disloyal thought. She didn’t know how Clint lived, and her love wasn’t worth the air she used to speak the words “I love you” if she couldn’t see beyond the stereotypes or the fabric of a man’s house. As she crested the top of the hill, she turned to look at him, but he looked toward the river.

Out of the intoxicating presence of his arms, the cold morning air and reality pierced her warm bubble of love, and she choked back panic against thoughts of the future. She hurried back to the cabin and slipped in to pick up her toiletries. Everyone still slept, and she managed to grab her towel and some clean, dry clothes without waking anyone. She hurried down to the shower house—hoping she would see Clint and yet fearing she would while still unable to understand her own emotions. He was very perceptive, and he would know if something was wrong. Jenny wasn’t sure anything was really wrong, but she needed to think about the night, what had happened, and what she hoped for the future.

Seeing no one else out and about at the early hour, she slipped into the shower house and jumped into the shower, allowing the hot water to warm her chilled body. She could not help but remember the feel of Clint’s hands on her body as she washed, and her knees weakened at the memory of his touch.

Nothing mattered at the moment but the love she felt for him. Nothing. She almost thought she would gladly give up everything to be with him...almost. As she scrubbed the river water from her hair with scented shampoo, it occurred to her that Clint hadn’t exactly asked her to give up anything for him, nor had he spoken of a future together. Of course, there had been little time in the tempestuous night to think of anything at all. Even under the warm water, delicious goose bumps broke out over her body, and she smiled.

She was thirty-eight years old, and she felt like a teenager in love all over again. She thought briefly of her husband. No, in fact, she felt like a teenager in love for the first time in her life. Nothing in her marriage had ever resembled the passion she felt for Clint, the yearning she felt for him even now when they’d been parted only a very brief time. Nothing about her ex-husband had ever elicited dreams of bare-breasted men on horseback...or fantasies of a sleek black panther. Clint was like no man she had ever met before...strikingly handsome, out of the ordinary, exotic even. And yet with all his good looks, he seemed so authentic, tender, kind, and loving. She sighed and turned off the water, her heart beginning to beat furiously in her chest as she anticipated seeing him shortly, at breakfast or in the classroom.

She could not think about the future at the moment. She could not. Not if Clint wasn’t in it. They had two days left together. She vowed not to waste them.

She dressed quickly and hastened back to her cabin to drop her toiletries off. She could see people huddled down by the community fire, warming themselves against the early morning chill as they sipped on warm cups of coffee.

She debated on waking Kate but decided against it. She wanted to see Clint as soon as possible. Perhaps he would be showered and sipping a cup of coffee himself by the fire.

Jenny quick-stepped down to the fire, but he wasn’t there. She skirted the area, hoping to avoid having to engage in routine conversations at the moment. She stepped into the dining hall, hoping no one would notice her as she ostensibly poured a cup of coffee from the restaurant-sized coffeemakers while looking for Clint.

She hoped no inquisitive eyes would be in the kitchen area, but sure enough, Susie and Sandra were already in there, clanging around with pots and pans. Clint wasn’t in the dining room, either. Jenny poured a quick cup of coffee and turned to go, hoping Susie and Sandra wouldn’t look up and see her.