Jennifer Greene - Sunburst

They spread the sleeping bags side by side at the top of the lighthouse again and stretched out on their sides, with a star-sprinkled sky for a ceiling, their haven a symbol of shelter in that lonely landscape. Erica listened, the puzzle pieces all falling into place, aching for the man who’d tried so hard to do right, even as a small boy. She could finally see so clearly how he’d confused love with loyalty thinking that the two were in opposition. She reached over to touch his face, to smooth away the last lines on his forehead. He pressed a kiss into her palm.

She wanted desperately to tell him that he had nothing to feel guilty about, that he had been as good to his father as any son could be. In time, perhaps, he would listen to her; she knew he had been working out the feelings all through these many months. Now it seemed more important that she just listen; that was what he most needed from her. And she needed to hear that he was willing to solve those problems through the channel of communication that they’d allowed to develop. It was never Joel McCrery or Morgan who had nearly destroyed their relationship; it was their own failure to talk to each other. Clearly.

Erica was willing to talk all night.

Kyle was willing to talk all night.

Something happened, though, as they continued to speak in whispers. They found other ways of communicating, as she touched his face, as he touched her hand, as they stared at each other so long in the moonlight. The night breeze obliged them by turning cool; they moved closer together. Two sleeping bags were suddenly too many.

Her knee touched his and found itself captured between his long legs. He couldn’t seem to keep his hands out of the sun-gold of her hair. Erica, as aware as Kyle of what was happening, smiled radiantly.

She heard a husky growl that sounded suspiciously like laughter at her response, from deep in his throat. She heard it, and then she felt it when his lips teased an evocative little message on hers. “Mrs. McCrery, through thick and thin, you may have noticed that a few things have never changed.”

She slid her hand down his side, over his lean ribs to his narrow hips, watching his whole body tense in response. She tried it again, with even more pleasing results. Restlessly, he drew her hips closer to his with one long leg, his hand beginning a gentle, sweet discovery of her left breast, as if he’d never touched it before. “What has never changed?” she inquired lightly.

“Your body loves mine.”

“I think your body is the problem, Mr. McCrery. It’s got a one-track mind. It always has had.” She sucked in her breath when he leaned over her, his tongue replacing his hand on her breast. “Kyle…”

“In a minute, Erica.”

A minute was just too long. She forgot the thought. There was a time for lovemaking that took hours, and a time for loving that captured all the emotions in short order. This was a short-order time. It was all there, the lonely trial they’d put each other through, their renewed hope and faith in the future, their stronger feelings of love. And the first time they made love that night, it was with a desperate need to deal with all of that, a hunger to reseal the bonds of commitment, a desire born of love, an urgent need to please and know each other. And last, the simplest wish, to communicate with each other on a level beyond words.

Afterward, Kyle held her close, still warming her in his arms, pressing soft, tender kisses on her forehead, in her hair. She lay still, watching the stars above them, feeling precious and cherished and well, well loved. They would survive; she knew that. There would be other crises; she knew that, too. That came with the territory of marriage. The thought filled her with more anticipation than fear. Their love measured up, had strength to endure all trials.

She curled up against his chest, only gradually waking from the aftermath of loving to look up at him. His turquoise eyes deepened to sapphire by starlight; she loved that. “I’m sorry,” she said gently, “about Morgan. Sorry you lost a friend.”

“He wasn’t,” Kyle said simply. “I think I’ve known that for a long time, really. But his family was so good to me when I was in school.”

“Loyalty again, Kyle?” she asked.

He kissed her forehead, lightly branding her.

“Where exactly were you the night after the belling? I waited and waited-”

“At the hospital.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, staring at him in the darkness. “At the-?”

“Morgan broke his nose. He had to be patched up before he could take that trailer of his back where it came from, Erica. I don’t understand how he could have fallen against that packing crate-”

“ Kyle! You hit him?”

“Of course not. Grown men don’t hit other grown men. You were the one who sent him away, Erica. That’s what counts.” He leaned over and kissed her chin, then the small hollow in her throat. “I came damned close,” he whispered, “to taking that St. Christopher’s medal around his neck and strangling him. You haven’t got a perfect husband, Erica. If anyone knows that, you do. He cracked a rib, too. On another packing crate.”

“Kyle-”

His lips touched down on her shoulder. “Mine,” he whispered. The same lips captured her right breast, neglected until now in favor of the left one. “Mine,” he whispered. “I don’t like people who hurt you, Erica.”

They headed into the takeoff between her third and fourth rib. Ignition, payload, soar. Poor Morgan, she thought fleetingly. A lonely ship in the night that foundered for lack of light. She had her lighthouse, her beacon, to guide her to shore. She had her love.

Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA-a Silver Medallion in 1984-followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.

She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.