Jennifer Greene - Sunburst

“So how’d it go?” he demanded, holding her at arm’s length to study her in turn.

“It went terrific! I have so many things to tell you-”

“In a minute.” He kissed her again, full and hard, his bare chest pressing against her softer curves. When he came up for air, he studied the tremor of her soft lips and the revealing darkness in her hazel eyes. He glanced toward the men and immediately curved an arm around her shoulder, herding her in the opposite direction from them. “Erica, I don’t even want to know how it went. That is the last overnight trip you’re going on without me, lady.”

Kyle pushed her into the passenger seat of the car. He slammed the door on her side and burrowed into his pocket for his car keys as he crossed to his own side.

She raised her eyebrows quizzically at his scowl. “It really did go fine,” she assured him calmly as the car roared to life.

“It did not go fine. How the hell did you expect me to sleep when you weren’t here?”

As feminine strategies went, that brief separation had obviously been an excellent idea. She buried a smile. “You were alone for over a month when your father was ill-”

“That was different. I knew exactly where you were and had a trail of people guaranteeing that nothing was going to happen to you. There are all kinds of idiots running around a city the size of Milwaukee. Pickpockets, rapists, men on the make-the sheets were cold on your side of the bed,” he added abruptly, his tone severe…and his eyes full of sheer blue mischief. She burst out laughing.

“It’s been hot. You should have appreciated cool sheets,” she pointed out.

“Like hell!”

“The four pickpockets I ran into-they’re all in the hospital now. Remember that self-defense course I took in college-”

“The one that successfully taught you to defend yourself against four-year-olds? Go on.”

“The one rapist I ran into-well, I just lifted my skirt to show off my knees. You always did tell me I had funny-looking knees, but it was still a real blow to my ego to see him go running in the opposite direction…”

“Obviously, he had terrible taste in knees. What else?”

“There was the one man who tried to pick me up in a restaurant-a big, tall redhead,” she said with relish. “Selling computers-”

“I knew damn well there was going to be something,” Kyle growled. “In fact, I knew the minute you walked out the door that it was a mistake…”

She looked at him interestedly. “You know, your last life must have been in the Middle Ages. Locked-up towers for the virgins, chastity belts and all that.”

“Chastity belts? You I trust, pint-size. It’s the rest of the world that kept me up last night. Now go on about the redhead,” he ordered.

“Hmm. Well, he was just getting to the point of being a nuisance when his wife showed up, and the three of us had dinner together. She had a face…” Erica shook her head descriptively. “It was kind of goatish, that’s all I can say. Long in chin and nose with little eyes sort of set back. Tufty hair.”

Kyle shot a grin at her, and fingered an imaginary whisker in acknowledgment of her catty remark.

“Well, she was. And the conversation was…well, there was never a dull moment. They had four kids, none of whom were with them. Evidently, they always go to these conventions together, spending their free time harassing unsuspecting travelers like me-by showing them pictures. They had approximately nine thousand photographs of everything from children trying to kill each other wrestling to how much wall the baby could splatter when it was fed prunes. It didn’t like prunes, and the poor thing had a goat face just like its mother…” She paused, relishing Kyle’s uninhibited laughter. “Where on earth are we going?”

“Just out,” he said lazily. “Away. Where I can hear about your trip for at least ten minutes in total privacy.” He glanced away from her, but she knew he meant Morgan. For all the help Morgan had been, and even with the trailer he had rented to sleep in so they wouldn’t be crowded in their small A-frame, he was still there for meals and evenings. The men always seemed to find enough to talk about, but by the time Morgan left each night, they were both so exhausted… Still, Erica had Morgan to thank for some of the changes in Kyle. He had come a very long way to help, and she had tried to go just as long a distance to make him feel welcome and to show her appreciation. Three weeks was not forever…but perhaps long enough to give Morgan a taste for being part of a family, steer him away from loose living and the free-floating women he’d always had a penchant for.

Kyle stopped within ten minutes at a gas station, pulling around to the side.

“This is where you wanted to talk?” she asked incredulously.

“Honey. We’ve been on the road for ten minutes. I have never taken you anywhere when you didn’t have to stop within the first ten minutes…” She could feel the color chasing up her cheeks; he chuckled. “If you don’t want to stop…”

“Dammit.”

Her weak kidneys were legend. His concern for her stay in the city had fallen on deaf ears; she was more than capable of handling any problem that might have come up, men or otherwise. Kyle really knew that, too, in spite of his teasing. Still, it momentarily irked her that Kyle had the ability to reduce her responsible twenty-eight-year-old self to a mortified child.

“Do you think you can last for another few minutes now?” he asked blandly when she came back out and slid into the car beside him.

“And would you like peanut-butter sandwiches for the next four years?” she wondered aloud, just as blandly.

He snatched her closer as he drove, until the wind swirled her topknot loose and long strands of hair whispered against the bare skin of his shoulders. She didn’t care where they were going. Her smile just wouldn’t fade. It was as if they had stepped back in time, to before the troublesome months, when their laughter was easy and just being together was a delicious pleasure. She laid a hand on his thigh and the car weaved promptly to the other side of the road. She found herself laughing again, as hickories, elms, maples shot past on the country lanes. “I’ll bet no girl was safe with you when you were a teenager,” she accused mockingly.

“ You certainly weren’t.”

“You never listened.” She remembered the long speech she had made about morals and commitments and let’s get to know each other first… She’d kept on talking right through the morning she awakened next to him in bed. Horrified. Except for Morgan, Kyle had had no equal as a man of many conquests. But where Morgan was concerned, even a much younger Erica had guessed intuitively that there was an ego involved, that he thought of women as notches on a belt. With Kyle, she had instinctively given trust and yet wondered if she was being foolish. Her suspicions were misplaced; he made it more than clear that she was the only woman who mattered to him. His aim was not to conquer or to add notches to his belt but to fill a physical and emotional need. From the beginning, and every time they were together.

He stopped the car in a wooded glen that bordered an immense field of wheat, waist-high for as far as the eye could see. The sun and the clouds were still waging their little war in the sky. The clouds were bunched-up charcoal masses clotted with rain, and a whisper of a breeze stirred their promise, but the sun was still hot, still stronger in the battle for the moment.

Kyle stood outside the car looking up as she made her way to his side. The birds and squirrels, so noisy in the morning, were silent, as if all the animals were napping at this time in the afternoon. A soft rush of whispering leaves encouraged a sense of privacy. Kyle looked down at her and took her hand as they walked out of sight from the car and road, down an old farmer’s path that was overgrown. She hadn’t the least notion where they were.