The Man from Pine Mountain Read online

  When he lifted his head, she could barely breathe. “I didn’t want this,” he admitted.

  “I don’t want this.”

  “Liar.” His mouth curved into a knowing smile, and he kissed her again, his hungry lips molding over hers. Her mouth clung to his, and she shivered when his hands spanned her waist. This time his weight drew them downward to a bed of straw, and her knees willingly gave way.

  She gasped when his callused fingers found the bare skin at the gap between her T-shirt and the waistband of her jeans, but her own fingers dug into the sinewy strength of his shoulders as she kissed him with utter abandon.

  “Libby,” he murmured. “Sweet, sweet Libby.” His knee wedged between her legs, and she felt the length of him pressed intimately against her body. A fever burned inside her veins, and her breasts ached with the want of his touch. Never before had she lost her head, never had she wanted, needed, to be caressed.

  His fingers inched up her ribs. Her diaphragm slammed against her lungs as he cupped a breast, tracing the scalloped lace of her bra. From deep in her throat, she moaned, and he stroked her with his thumb, causing her nipple to pucker with want. His mouth moved easily over hers, sliding and molding to hers as he lowered himself, his greedy lips pressing wet hot kisses against her chin, her throat, her collarbone.

  Deep inside she felt a moistness, an aching void that grew to a chasm of dark lust. Her fingers twisted in his hair as he lifted her T-shirt and touched the tip of his tongue to her breast. She jerked as if a jolt of electricity had rocked her, and he gathered her close, burying his face in the soft mound of her breast, kissing and laving her nipple through the lace of her bra. Her spine arched, and she tried to press more of herself into him, to give him what he needed, to offer comfort and solace and satisfaction.

  With a groan, he lifted his head, leaving her nipple cold and wet and desolate as he stared deep into her eyes. His own were glazed, and she watched him try to drag in one calming breath after another. “This…this won’t work….” he said, his gaze drifting downward to her breasts, still hindered by her scrap of a bra. With shaking hands, he tugged her T-shirt back over her skin. “Damn it, Libby, we both know it.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Of course you do.” But he glanced to her face again, and he must have seen the decision in her eyes. “Come on. Get up.” With a tender smile, he pulled a few pieces of straw from her hair. “You’re the minister’s daughter, for crying out loud!”

  “I’m a woman.”

  His gaze flicked down her body. “No argument about that.”

  “I make up my own mind.”

  “Not this time.” He pulled her to her feet and placed both hands on her shoulders, keeping her at arms’ length. “Don’t get me wrong. I want you, Libby. More than I’ve ever wanted a woman. And if you weren’t the daughter of the reverend, who happens to be a friend of mine, and if your mother wasn’t sick and hoping to see you marry a good man before she has to leave this earth, and if I thought you could live with yourself after we made love, then I’d bed you right here and now. God knows I want to.”

  Shame washed up her face in a hot wave. “I didn’t ask you to bed me.”

  “Call it what you will. But we can’t make love.”

  She recognized the wisdom in his way of thinking; she knew he was right, darn it, but still she felt disappointed and bereft. Pulling out of his grasp, she tossed her hair off her shoulders and said, “Don’t label me, Brett. And don’t think of me as the preacher’s daughter, okay? As a matter of fact, don’t bother thinking about me at all!” Turning on her heel, she left him standing in the barn and told herself that she would never, never, allow herself to get into a compromising position with him again! Hell would freeze over before she did.

  * * *

  Her vow lasted all of two days.

  Brett didn’t come the next night for dinner and when he arrived the following day, he looked right through her, as if she didn’t exist. Rankled, she forced him into conversation. His answers were polite but crisp. The air between them fairly crackled with unspoken emotion. She caught him looking at her several times, from a distance, the heat still simmering in his eyes.

  So he wasn’t as immune to her as he pretended to be. She felt a little vindication at that thought, but still, he never touched her, and when he left that night, without so much as saying goodbye, she watched him go with a heavy heart.

  Unable to stand the strain any longer, she made excuses to Irene about being unable to sleep, saddled a quick little mare and took off after Hercules’s trail. With the silver glow of the moon as her illumination, and her memory of the paths surrounding the camp as her compass, she pressed her knees into the mare’s sides and urged the eager horse forward, over the bridge and up the steep incline leading to the ranger station.

  The rush of creek water dulled to a soft murmur, but the drone of insects and the thunder of bats’ wings kept the night alive. The mare shied at a bend in the trail as an unseen creature scurried through the undergrowth. Libby’s heart pounded with fear. Her nerves were strung tight. She was on a fool’s journey. She could get lost in this rugged wilderness; the horse could make a misstep and tumble over the sheer cliffs that were less than a quarter of a mile away now, or the mare might step into a hole in the path and break her leg.

  “Fool,” she muttered. Glancing over her shoulder and gazing down the dark canyon, she saw the dying campfire still blazing through the branches of the pine trees and small beacons of lantern light shining from the windows of the cabins.

  Suddenly the mare snorted, her ears flicking anxiously, as she sidestepped.

  Libby’s heart slammed to the dusty ground. “What—?”

  The mare started to rear as a hand reached out of the darkness and held firmly to the reins. “Following me?” Brett asked, his eyes mirrors of moonlight as he stared up at her.

  Libby felt suddenly foolish. Her heart was still trip-hammering with fear and apprehension. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to talk.”

  He raised a critical eyebrow. “Talk?” he repeated as she climbed off the mare and stood face-to-face with him. In the dark he seemed larger, his size intimidating.

  She squared her shoulders. “We can’t go on like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Seeing each other, not talking, avoiding contact.”

  “Contact?” he repeated. “That’s what you want?”

  Her teeth ground together in silent fury, but she would not be baited. She would not! “What I want is for us to be friends.”

  He snorted and glanced at the starry sky. “I already told you what a lousy liar you are. Don’t stretch my patience.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  Sighing, he looked again at the star-dappled heavens. “What I want… Oh, Libby, it would scare the living daylights right out of you.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  His lips flattened over his teeth, and he let out a stream of invective that would have absolutely turned her father’s hair snow-white. “What I want is for you to get back on that horse, ride carefully back down this damned mountain, and leave me the hell alone.”

  Her throat closed and tears flooded her eyes as he turned his back to her. “You’re a lousy liar, too,” she said, her voice catching.

  At the sound of her trembling words, his shoulders slumped. “Libby, don’t—”

  “Don’t what? Don’t love you? Don’t hate you? Don’t touch you? Don’t talk to you? What?”

  “Oh, hell—don’t fall for me.”

  A lump filled her throat. “It’s too late for that.”

  He bit his lower lip, and with a curse leveled at himself he turned and looked into her eyes again. “I should never have started this,” he said.

  “But you did. Why?”

  “Because…” He struggled for the right words, struggled to find a lie. But as he gazed into her eyes, he gave up all pretense, and his emotions wer
e stripped bare. “Because I couldn’t stop myself. With you. I couldn’t…can’t…” He stepped closer, tilted her chin upward with one finger, then wiped away a solitary tear that trickled from the corner of her eye. “You make me crazy.”

  She smiled. “I know.”

  “You asked me what I want from you. The answer is that I want everything.” Cupping the back of her head with his hand, he drew her lips to his and kissed her with a tenderness that caused her soul to shatter. “Everything,” he repeated against her open mouth.

  She wound her arms around his neck, and they tumbled to the soft carpet of pine needles at the bend in the trail. His hands found the buttons of her blouse, and she held on to him as if to life itself.

  This time, he didn’t stop. This time, he made love to her. Under the wide expanse of star-studded sky, with the mountains rising above them, he claimed her for his own.

  * * *

  Their affair grew over the summer, and as Marla Bevans’s health declined, Libby clung tighter to her love for Brett. She gave herself to him willingly and often, and the secret they shared, the tenderness they felt for each other, helped ease the pain of watching Marla slowly die.

  “It’s not fair!” she cried, storming into the small chapel at the camp, where her father was praying. She’d spent the afternoon with her mother, her heart slowly shredding. Tears streamed from her eyes, and a deep rage flowed in her veins. “Mom’s so young, so good, so—Oh, damn it, we need her. I need her!”

  Her father placed a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I know you do, honey. So do I. But we have to understand that God works in mysterious ways.”

  “Well, God made a mistake this time!” Libby threw back at him.

  “Shh… Be patient, Libby.”

  “I can’t, and I won’t! This is wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!”

  Her father’s face turned chalk-white. With stricken eyes, he said, “Don’t ever doubt the word of our Lord. His wisdom is all-seeing.”

  “Oh, Dad, how can you be so blind?” she cried, running out of the small chapel. She waited restlessly all day for Brett. He arrived at camp that evening, and Libby threw herself into his arms, unafraid of her father, who, from his position near the flagpole, could hardly miss seeing that his daughter was in love with Brett Matson.

  He didn’t seem to mind. Nor did her mother. In the last few days of Marla’s life, she was at peace, telling Libby that she could go happily to her reward, knowing that her daughter had found happiness with a good man.

  All in all, Libby spent the waning days of summer either ecstatically happy with Brett or miserably wretched as she prepared for her mother’s death.

  During the last session of camp, Libby realized she was pregnant. She’d guessed that something was wrong when she skipped her first period, but she’d chalked up the change in her cycle to her ragged state of emotions. Falling in love with Brett while tending to her sick mother had placed her in an emotional mine field. However, by the time she missed her second period, morning sickness had set in, and she had to confide in Brett.

  “I think we’re going to have a baby.”

  It was night. The stars were shining through the window of the barn, and Brett was repairing a bridle. He looked up sharply from his stool, and the corners of his mouth tightened. “You’re sure?”

  “No. But I’m a nurse… Well, I will be soon. I know the symptoms. So, yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

  He didn’t smile, but he reached forward, drew her close to him and held her tight, his head pressed intimately to her abdomen. “Then we’ll get married,” he said, without a trace of emotion. “As soon as possible.”

  He didn’t say he loved her, didn’t even mention his joy at the prospect of becoming a father, but Libby knew he must feel the same state of elation that had brought her so much happiness already. Her only regrets were that her mother wouldn’t live to see the birth of her first grandchild, and that Libby would have to put her own career on hold for a while. But it would be worth it. She was to become a mother. She placed her hand over her flat abdomen and smiled at the thought that she was carrying Brett’s child.

  The baby was their secret—hers and Brett’s. After the wedding ceremony, she would break the happy news that she was pregnant to her family.

  Her parents, predictably, were thrilled at the news of her upcoming marriage and her mother blinked against hot tears as she held her daughter’s hand and smiled up at her. “Didn’t I tell you?” she asked Libby. “I knew from the first time I saw the two of you together.”

  During the next few days, while she was home with her mother, Libby planned a small wedding. Her father would officiate in their home, where her mother could be a part of the ceremony. Marla seemed to improve for a while. Just the thought of her daughter’s marriage lifted her spirits. However, on the last day of summer camp, Marla took a turn for the worse. She was rushed to the hospital in Bend, and there, with her family waiting anxiously beside her, she passed away.

  Despite the prayers.

  Despite the hospital and the doctors.

  Despite the fact that Libby still needed her.

  Libby had told herself she was prepared, that she could handle her mother’s passing. But she’d been wrong. The hole in her heart was deep and painful. Her grief encompassed her, and she felt lost in the little house she’d called home for so many years. Involuntarily she listened for the sound of her mother’s footsteps, her quiet cough, the tunes she hummed as she worked, but the house was empty. The ticking of the clock and humming of the refrigerator were no replacement for the warm sound of dishes rattling or beans snapping or the whisper of a broom as it brushed the floor.

  Think about the baby. About Brett. About the happiness in your future, she silently counseled herself as she tried and failed to help her father through his grief. He spent long hours in the church, praying and talking with God, but in the end he seemed as lost as Libby.

  The congregation sympathized. “She’s gone to her final reward…. She’s with God now…. At least she isn’t suffering any longer…. She’s found her peace….” The platitudes swirled around her, sounding suspiciously empty.

  Libby held on to Brett through the funeral and in a fog of agony, watched as her father, with his unwavering faith, eulogized his wife of twenty-eight years.

  “I know it’s hard, but you have to get over it,” Brett said on the day after the funeral. Libby’s eyes still felt hot and burned with tears. Her father’s final prayer for his dead wife played over and over in her mind, and the depth of her sorrow seemed bottomless. She barely ate, and found it difficult to smile.

  “I thought I was prepared. But I guess you never can be,” she said.

  “Try.” Brett took both her hands in his. “For me.” His arms surrounded her, and she leaned against him, letting the tears flow and holding on to his strength. She would get over this darkness in her soul. With Brett and the baby, she had reasons to live, reasons to find joy in life.

  Slowly, day by day, her grief subsided. With the promise of the future, she found her smile again, and though she thought of her mother often, she concentrated on the future and helping her father, who, despite his faith in God, was utterly lonely and grief-stricken. Libby taught him how to use the microwave, showed him how to wash and iron his own clothes, and found a woman who could come into the parsonage once a week to clean the place.

  Life was settling down, the wedding was less than a week away, and Libby had thrown herself into her wedding plans. The invitations had been sent, the flowers and cake ordered and a dress purchased, and nearly everything was set. A small traditional wedding, nothing fancy. Everything was going as smoothly as possible.

  Two days before the ceremony, Libby planned to surprise Brett with a wedding present—a spirited gray Percheron colt Brett had been eyeing for most of the summer. The colt, owned by a farmer in the valley, was expensive, but Libby bought the two-year-old with funds she’d planned to use for school and had the gray delivered to Brett�
�s home on Pine Mountain.

  Once the farmer left, she waited expectantly for Brett. Astride the stocky horse, her heart nearly bursting with anticipation, she rode around the small paddock, patting the colt’s sleek neck and visualizing the smile that would curve Brett’s mouth at the sight of the animal. “This is gonna be good,” she confided in the horse when she heard the whine of Brett’s truck climbing the steep hill. The colt’s dark ears pricked forward, and he pawed at the ground.

  “It’s all right,” Libby assured him, but the animal’s shoulders quivered. “Wait till he sees you.”

  The engine grew louder.

  The colt snorted and minced, as if he, too, were anxious.

  “Hold on, boy.”

  The truck rounded a curve, emerged from the trees and slid to a stop near the barn.

  Libby, grinning widely, waved a hand in the air as Brett climbed out of the cab.

  “What the devil—?”

  From another paddock, a horse whinnied, and the colt, nervous, reared and twisted.

  “Libby!” Brett yelled as Libby scrabbled for the reins. Her knees tightened around the horse’s sides, but her weight carried her downward. She tried to catch hold of his mane when she realized she was falling, but she couldn’t. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Brett vault the fence.

  “Hang on! Libby!”

  His warning was useless. The sun-baked ground rushed up at her, and she hit the dirt with a sickening thud that jarred her from her shoulders to her toes.

  Brett yelled at the beast, and the gray backed away as Libby’s body smacked into the ground. “Oh, God,” he whispered as he raced across the packed dirt and fell to his knees at her side. “Are you all right? Libby?” Fear pricked his heart, and he felt a sense of relief when her eyes fluttered open. She’d be all right. She had to be.

  She moaned as he pulled her into his arms. Kissing her dusty forehead, he held her tight, and didn’t notice the dark stain spreading across her jeans until it was much too late.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Libby was cold. So very cold. A dirty, retching taste filled her mouth, and her nose felt rough, like sandpaper. She’d dreamed…horrible dreams…and yet Brett had been in those dreams, holding her close, carrying her, saving her from some hideous watery beast.