Jed's Sweet Revenge Page 16

  “I love you,” he whispered. Even in sleep she must have heard, because her hand sought his and snugly intertwined their fingers. One corner of Jed’s mouth lifted in a pensive smile as he fell asleep beside her in the sunshine.

  Thena awoke an hour later. She ruffled Jed’s hair and kissed his mouth tenderly. He stirred. “Hmmm,”

  “Jedidiah, I’m going downstairs to the gift shop and look at the magazines. I’ll be right back.”

  “Hmmm.” He nodded groggily.

  Downstairs, Thena wandered idly along an arched, marbled hallway that fronted expensive boutiques, eyeing the colorful and bizarre clothes on the window mannequins. “Sacrebleu!” she said out loud. “Dispendieux et laid comme un crapaud!”

  A high-pitched male laugh startled her. Thena looked down the hall to a shop entrance several doors further. A lanky, fair-skinned man in designer jeans and a feminine-looking, canary-yellow shirt smiled at her warmly.

  “Expensive and ugly as sin!” he echoed, in English. “My dear, I adore your description of those tawdry rags!”

  Intrigued because he looked so different from any man she’d ever met before, Thena smiled back. A gleaming art nouveau doorway in black and gold framed him. Above his head, scrawled in ornate neon letters, a sign said simply, Tresses. She looked back at the man, who was still smiling.

  “Oooh,” he sighed slowly. “That lovely, unstructured hair of yours. What miracles I could work with that.” Another man, just as feminine-looking and just as friendly, poked his head out the door and studied her. A long cigarette was posed elegantly in the man’s fingertips.

  “Remarkable,” the second man crooned. “What texture. What thickness. She reminds one of an unstructured Kathleen Turner, doesn’t she?”

  Thena touched her shaggy brunet hair. What was this “unstructured” business and why did it sound vaguely uncomplimentary? She wanted to make Jed happy. She wanted to fit in on the mainland. Perhaps by becoming structured she’d have a better chance. “You cut hair?” she asked politely.

  Both the lanky man and his companion laughed. Thena puzzled over them, then decided she liked them. They were exotic. She was exotic, too, and they seemed to appreciate that fact. The lanky man swept into a low bow.

  “Monsieur Markus, the proprietor, at your service, mademoiselle.”

  “Merci,” she answered, and curtsied. More laughter.

  “Mademoiselle, I do, as you say, cut hair. But don’t tell anyone. My clients expect to have their hair ‘designed,’ not cut.”

  Thena walked toward his salon. “Would you design my hair? I’m staying here at the hotel,” she hurried to add, “and I can afford whatever you charge.” Jedidiah will be so pleased with my mainland look, she thought in excitement.

  Monsieur Markus chewed his lower lip and tugged at his smooth jaw with long, cool-looking fingers as he appraised her hair. Then he nodded, his eyes gleaming with plans. “Come into my salon, said the spider to the fly.” He winked wickedly and gestured toward the interior. Her whole body tingling with expectation, Thena walked inside.

  When Jed woke up, the sunlight had been replaced by long evening shadows. The big hotel room was dark except for lines of light that escaped around the edges of the closed bathroom door. The sounds of muffled crying—he heard them and knew they were the reason he’d wakened. Thena’s crying. Jed leapt off the bed, rushed to the bathroom door, and shoved it open.

  Sitting on the side of the sunken whirlpool tub, her head hidden under a huge beige towel, Thena looked up in tearful shock. Immediately, she composed her face and wrenched a smile from some determined recess of her soul. “Oh … oh, hello, Jedidiah. I just finished reading a sad, sad magazine story, and …”

  He knelt in front of her and grasped her tear-streaked face between his hands. She clutched the towel tight under her chin, and Jed’s eyes filled with concern at such a strange, secretive reaction. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? What the hell kind of story makes you cry and hide in the john with your head under a towel?”

  “Oh … it was about … Madonna and Sean Penn. She’s a singer of some sort, you see, and he’s an actor, and they’re married. He’s constantly hitting people, and it’s very romantic, and—”

  “Thena,” Jed said in a warning tone. He tried to ease the towel off her head, but she pulled away from his grasp. A sob tore from her lips as she buried her face against his shoulder, the towel still over her head.

  “The truth,” he commanded. She made a small keening sound of despair.

  “I had my hair designed, Jedidiah! I went downstairs … there was this beauty parlor called Tresses, and the owner spoke French—”

  “Are you sayin’ you got your hair cut off?”

  The horrified tone of his voice sent her into a crying spasm that soaked a large spot on his cotton polo shirt. Not only was she distressed by what she’d done, but Jedidiah obviously hated the idea—even the idea—of her getting her hair cut. Oh, no.

  “Sweetheart, sweetheart, ssssh.” He tried to tease, for her sake. “What’d you do? Get a crew cut?” His eyes clouded with alarm, he quickly held her away from him and pulled the towel off her head. His involuntary gasp and pained grimace spoke volumes.

  “I’m sorry, Jedidiah! I didn’t know a hair design would be so short!” She snatched the towel back and buried her face in it, her shoulders shaking.

  After a moment he calmly pried her face up from the towel and grasped it between his callused, loving hands. Her once-glorious mane of hair now lay in feathery, gently curving layers that ended just below her ears. It gave her a sophisticated, pert appearance that was very appealing. But he had loved her long hair.

  “Why?” he groaned. “Why did you do it? I thought you liked your hair.”

  “I did, but I thought getting it cut would … please you. I wanted to make up for being such an uncooperative toad earlier today.” She shivered, biting her lip to contain a new round of sobs. Jed took her in his arms and held her tightly.

  “My poor baby. What have I done to you by haulin’ you off to this damned place? Sssh. I love you. I like your hair,” he lied, “It’s real short, but pretty.”

  “I look like a mare who’s had her mane roached.”

  “Quiet down now. Hush, sweetheart.”

  He carried her to the bed, stripped off her clothes, and put her under the covers. Then he got a wet washcloth and gently dabbed at her swollen face. She grew still and silent, her sad, silver eyes following him, never leaving him. He ordered sumptuous lobster dinners and a bottle of champagne from room service and switched the room’s television to a showing of Jane Eyre with Orson Welles.

  Her eyes widened with interest, and she looked a little happier. When room service arrived, Jed undressed and got in bed with her, and they ate off bed trays. The champagne eased her misery, and by the time she finished dessert, she could bear to crane her neck and look at herself in the dresser mirror across from their bed.

  Jane Eyre caused her to cry again, and Jed was grateful when it ended. Thena’s tears made him admit that nothing would be right until she was back on Sancia. He turned the television and lights off, then slid back in bed, his heart aching and worried. She came to him in the dark, her arms warm and comforting, as if she knew that the last few days had been hell for him too.

  “Sweet man,” she whispered. “Sweet, caring man. Be still and let me care for you now.”

  She pulled the covers back, exposing his naked body to her hands and mouth. Lying on his back, Jed moaned softly as a powerful combination of love and desire tugged at his senses. Thena was as all-encompassing as the darkness; she aroused every inch of his skin, kissing the scars and the calluses with the same devotion that she gave to the more alluring parts of his body.

  It seemed that she caressed him for hours, but her hands never tired of their sensuous waltz over his stomach and thighs, then up to his shoulders, then across his throat and down to his nipples, where they paused each time to swirl his curly hair and approve the swift ri
sing and falling of his chest.

  When she concentrated her attention on his most sensitive place, he pressed his head back into the pillow and whispered her name like a prayer. His big, ordinarily calm hands weren’t calm any longer. They hung in the air, quivering, then stroked her hair and followed the highly erotic rhythm of her movements.

  Thena was the other half of his soul and his dreams, as inseparable from him as night from day. It was dangerous to be this close to another person, he knew—it left him open for more hurt than he’d ever known was possible. But that wasn’t important compared to the fulfillment and happiness she gave him with her touch, her voice, her love.

  A bittersweet emotion caused a knot in the pit of his stomach. The future was a dark place on the horizon because he knew she belonged on Sancia, and he didn’t. He had spent too many years hating his grandfather to change completely; the ugly feeling would always be with him, a discordant note that would destroy the island’s harmony—his and Thena’s harmony—if he tried to live there.

  His eyes shut fiercely tight, his teeth clenched, Jed cried out as he rose to meet the incessant invitation of her mouth and hands. He collapsed back on the bed, his breathing harsh and unsteady.

  She quickly covered him and took him in her arms, cradling his head against her breasts. Her hands stroked his damp hair with alarm. “Jedidiah, it’s all right,” she soothed, her voice worried. “I won’t leave you.”

  “What … why are you sayin’ that?” he gasped raggedly. He knew he’d spoken words a moment earlier, but they’d been forgotten in his haze of heartache and release.

  “You said … ‘don’t go.’ ” Her voice broke. “I won’t, Jedidiah, I won’t—”

  “You have to,” he said in anguish. “You don’t belong on the mainland.”

  “No, I do belong! I belong wherever you are—”

  “I’ll visit you, and you’ll visit me. We’ll make do—”

  She put a hand over his mouth to silence him. She held him with desperate possessiveness, her head bent low over his, her lips pressed into his hair. “No more talk tonight,” she begged in a thready, barely audible voice. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to go to Wyoming tomorrow.”

  He nuzzled his face against her and placed a kiss on the silky skin over her heart. “No more talk,” he promised wearily. There was no need. The issue was settled, and they both knew it.

  Their horses stood quietly, ears relaxed and eyes droopy, as the crisp September wind swept down from the white mountains and whirled across the prairie to their place on the high, grassy knoll. Thena reached down distractedly and stroked her bay’s warm neck. “Wyoming is a beautiful place, Jedidiah,” she said sincerely. “The air tastes wonderful here. It tastes … blue.”

  Beside her on a tall roan, Jed’s mouth curved in a tired smile. Whimsy and small talk, that’s what she wanted. They’d been pretending for the past two days, ever since that emotional night in California, that everything was just wonderful.

  “A thousand acres,” he murmured, gesturing at the land in front of them, “and it’ll all be mine if I just sign my name to a piece of paper.” He paused, letting the wind sift through the enormity of that idea. “It’s what I’ve dreamed about all my life, havin’ land like this.”

  “I know, sweetheart, I know. Your ranch. Your dream. I understand.”

  Sorrow cut through him as if the wind had just seeped between his bones. Jed closed his eyes a moment, gathering strength. When he opened them, he stared straight ahead, seeking the mountains as a focus.

  “I’ll build whatever kind of house you like best,” he told her in a desperately calm voice. “So when you’re here, you’ll feel at home. You can buy whatever makes you happy, to go in it.”

  She reached over and clasped his hand tightly. He turned his head slowly, his gaze painfully controlled, to look at her. The gaze she returned was both loving and troubled.

  “And whatever you want done to the house on Sancia, I’ll do it,” she told him. “So that when you’re there, you’ll feel at home.”

  He nodded. “Come here, wildflower.” In a single, powerful movement, he reached under her arms, lifted her from her horse’s back, and pulled her in front of him. The big roan shifted lazily, unconcerned by the new weight. Jed eased back in the saddle so that he could cradle her easily in his arms. Her eyes glistening, Thena put her hands on his wind-roughened face and drew him to her for a gentle kiss.

  “It’s time I said the formal thing,” he whispered. Their eyes met and held. “Will you marry me?”

  She smiled tenderly and answered without hesitation or surprise, just as he had expected. “Yes.” They kissed for an eternity, their movements slow and sweet. Without another word, Jed took the reins on Thena’s horse and led it beside his as they descended the knoll. Thena rested her face against the crook of Jed’s neck, her eyes shut.

  More than a mile passed under the horses’ hooves before they came to the two-lane state highway where Jed had left a borrowed truck and trailer. They loaded the horses and took them back to the Circle Ten Ranch. Jed’s old friends, Mac and Barbara, had loaned them the horses, the vehicles, and a spacious guest room.

  That night, Thena made love to Jed for hours in that guest room, and they talked for hours afterward, until they finally fell asleep in each other’s arms amidst the jumbled bedcovers. The next morning he climbed into a long-bed stock truck loaded with saddle horses and went with Mac Bullock and a dozen cowboys to a distant part of the ranch to round up cattle. A borrowed jacket pulled tightly around her shoulders, Thena stood by the rear of the truck and smiled up at him.

  “I’ll be back tonight,” he promised, looking a little guilty. “Sure you don’t mind?”

  “You need to have some fun, Jedidiah, and I know spending the day out on the prairie will make you happy. Go ahead.”

  He leapt down from the back of the truck and gave her a long kiss, which drew hoots and applause from Mac and his ranch hands. Ignoring them stoically, Jedidiah told her, “Have a good time visitin’ with Barbara.”

  “We’re friends already. I’ll be fine.”

  Reassured, he got back in the truck. Thena watched it pull away. Jed hung out the back and tipped his hat to her. It was an old, comfortable-looking tan Stetson that suited him perfectly. The dramatic and dearly loved sight of him in that hat, at home in his world, bolstered her will to do what she had to do next. She waved, her throat on fire with sadness. Then she went back into the Bullocks’ big house, where Barbara waited for her, her plump face worried and set.

  “You sure?” she asked Thena.

  Thena nodded. “I’ll be ready to leave in ten minutes.”

  Twelve

  When she arrived back on Sancia, hours later, Thena wearily went through the laborious process of making a long-distance telephone connection via her ham radio. It was four-thirty in the afternoon, her time, but only two-thirty Wyoming time, when she contacted the Circle Ten. She left word with Barbara that she’d call Jed that evening at eight, Wyoming time. He couldn’t call her long distance—the telephone/radio connection didn’t work in reverse.

  The dogs were still with Beneba, and Cendrillon, after galloping to meet her at the dock, had wandered into the forest again. Lonely and depressed, Thena walked the beaches and stared at the horizon—the western horizon always. The years stretched ahead of her and Jed, full of separations such as this. Would the partings always be this difficult? she wondered.

  At ten, her hands trembling, she called the Circle Ten a second time. Mac answered the phone and quickly turned it over to Jed, who had obviously been waiting. Thena took a deep breath and tried to ignore the tears that slid slowly down her face.

  “Why?” was all he said, but the clipped, anxious word contained a saga of anger and hurt.

  “Jedidiah, I decided it was best if I left without telling you—at least this time. You would never have let me come back by myself … and I have to learn to travel alone, don’t I? And … it hurt less,
this way.”

  “You don’t know what it did to me, to get back tonight and find out you’d headed across the damn country by yourself.” His voice was hard. “It scared the hell out of me.”

  “I have to learn, my love. You know that.”

  “Is this how it’s going to be when we’re married? Will you run for the damn island every time I turn my back?”

  “No!”

  “I’ll be on the first plane to Atlanta in the morning. Dammit, Thena, what you did wasn’t fair.”

  “We agreed that this is the only way we can share a life, Jedidiah. This is how … how it’s going to be the rest of our lives. We have to get used to it.”

  “I don’t want to get used to it! I want you … here.” He stopped to compose his voice, which sounded ragged and gruff. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “No.” Her tears weren’t silent anymore. They invaded her voice and made it waver. “This is the way our life is going to be, Jedidiah. We’ll make it wonderful, I promise. But we have to … learn to … be apart. You can’t … come. You have to buy your … ranch.”

  “How can I care about a ranch when I’m worried about you on the other side of the country?”

  “My spirits look after me, Jedidiah. Don’t worry.”

  “Dammit, Thena, don’t talk to me about your spirits. You believe what you want to about spooks, but if you need help, it won’t be them who’ll know it—it’ll be me. That’s because there’s a bond between two people who love each other as much as we do, and it hasn’t got anything to do with any spirits but our own.”

  “My stubborn Jedidiah.” She pressed a hand to her throat, trying to keep her voice from dissolving completely. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I told you. I’m getting on a plane—”

  “To do what? Come here to stay? To live permanently?”

  His long silence ended finally in a long stream of low, tormented curses directed at the madness of the situation. “No, Jedidiah, you’re going to live in Wyoming and visit Sancia. I’m going to live on Sancia and visit Wyoming. That’s how it will be. I think you should … I think you should come back here … in a month.”