Any Thursday (Donovans of the Delta) (17 page)

“I’ve never stopped being that warrior. I’ve merely been given a reprieve, a time to woo the woman I love” —he lifted a strand of her hair and brought it to his lips— “the woman I’ll always love.”

“Let’s not talk; let’s take a bubble bath.”

He leaned back and lifted that sardonic brow at her. “Woman, I like your straightforward way of seduction. Nothing subtle, just get right to the point.”

She gave him an arch smile. “Who said anything about seduction? I was merely offering to share my bath with you.”

“I hope you’re planning to make up for banning me from your bath in Greenville.”

She laughed. “You’ll never know how close I came to pulling you into the tub.”

“You’ll never know how close I came to getting in—whether you wanted me to or not.”

Jim started toward the tub, but Hannah put a hand on his arm and stopped him. “Would you mind building a small fire?”

“I’ll light your fire anytime, Hannah.”

She smiled. “In the fireplace.”

One look at her wicked, witty face told him that whatever she had in mind would add up to total delight. Without another word he started to build a fire.

Hannah turned off all the lights so that the cabin was lit only by the red-gold flicker of the fire and the misty summer night glow that poured through the skylight. She led Jim to a chair beside the fire.

“I hope this is a ringside seat.”

“The best in the house,” she said as she walked toward the tub. Turning the hot water on full force, she dumped in the lavender. The steamy fragrance rose from the tub, permeating the cabin. With the water whooshing beside her, Hannah turned back to Jim. Ever so slowly she began to unbutton her blouse. His eyes glistened as a glimpse of white satin came into view. It was another of those delightfully feminine garments she wore under her functional work clothes, a tiny wisp of white satin and lace.

Jim’s passion rose. What a woman, he thought. She could handle a hammer, a team of sled dogs, and a demanding career as easily as she could breathe. And yet she was as feminine as the white lace on her teddy. With one graceful gesture of her arm she lifted her heavy hair and arched her neck. Her pose was both provocative and inviting.

He made a move to rise, but Hannah held up her hand. It was her show. He let her have it, even if the effort at control killed him.

Her thumbs hooked the waistband of her denim skirt. It slithered slowly down her hips, revealing the French-cut sides of her teddy. With her nipped-in waist, her long legs, and the delicious swelling of her hips, she was the most desirable woman Jim had ever known.

With a smile designed to set every wolf in the wilderness to howling, Hannah leaned over the tub. The view presented to Jim sent his blood pressure up at least to stroke level, he calculated. Hannah turned back around, and with the languid look of a sorceress let a handful of the fragrant water trickle between her breasts. The firelight turned the water in the tub and Hannah’s skin to a fine gold. Still smiling, she dipped another handful of water and sent it cascading across the flat planes of her stomach. The bright drops of moisture traveled slowly downward, licking Hannah as intimately as a lover. Wet satin and lace molded her body.

She repeated the process until she was sleek and glistening, then she started toward him, using that walk that made him want to lay kingdoms at her feet. She stood proudly before him, his smoke-and-fire woman, wet and gilded by the firelight.

There was no sound in the room except Jim’s ragged breathing.

“Good Lord, woman, do you mean to drive me mad?”

She smiled. “Only for two days.”

“I’ll take what I can get” He reached for her. Pulling her close, he peeled away the teddy and licked the small drops of water that clung to her stomach. The warmth of the fire, the fragrance of lavender, and the nearness of Hannah filled his senses. “This could turn out to be the longest bath in the history of man,” he said as his tongue followed the path of moisture.

It was a long time before they made it to the tub, and an even longer time in the tub. Among the fragrant bubbles they discovered pleasures they’d only dreamed of. Forgotten were the separations, the silences, the secret fears that kept them apart. Nothing mattered except the two of them and the great moments they shared.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

They had one night of wonder.

During that time they didn’t talk much, but merely took advantage of their time to be together. Their loving was so bright, so precious that they were both afraid talking would spoil it.

But the pressing matter of marriage remained on Jim’s mind. At breakfast on the day after his arrival, he decided the time had come to broach the subject.

“Hannah. Let’s talk.”

“I’ll make fresh coffee.”

When she started to rise, he stopped her. Catching her hand, he pulled her gently back into her chair.

“Stay . . . please. I don’t need fresh coffee. I need you.”

She lifted her eyes toward the loft bed. “We could . . .”

“Hannah, you siren. If you keep tempting me, I’ll never get around to another marriage proposal.”

“That’s the general idea.” She turned her face away from his and gazed at the antique tub. She’d been gloriously happy until he mentioned marriage. Why couldn’t things go on forever just the way they were? No commitment, no relinquishing of control, no possibility of failure.

“I love you, Hannah. I want us to be married, to have a life together, to have a family together.”

She pulled her hand away. “Please don’t touch me while you’re saying those things. I can’t think straight when you touch me.”

“All right. Nothing physical.” He settled back in his chair and pulled out his pipe. “You know, Colter was the first to discover that you were the woman I’d been searching for all my life. I had this impossible vision—a dream woman, someone old-fashioned and sweet and very dependent. All the time I was searching, my dream woman was right in front of my nose. You, Hannah.”

Hannah sat very still, concentrating on his every word. She’d promised him a hearing, and she owed it to both of them to make it a fair one.

“Did that dream include a cozy house and lots of children?”

“Yes. It still does—maybe. At least, it includes the children.” He swung his gaze around her cabin. “I’ve grown accustomed to this place. I can picture lace curtains at the windows and the two of us sitting beside the fire, sipping wine and making babies. Everything will work, Hannah, as long as I have you—my dream woman.”

A homemaker, she thought.
He probably isn’t even aware of it, but he wants to turn me into a homemaker.
She felt stifled. But she stilled her panic long enough to raise a sensible issue.

“But you’ve always done big-city work—crime fighting.”

“While I was here doing those stories on your work, I felt a certain creative freedom that I hadn’t felt in years. I’ve always known that someday I would do other kinds of writing. Now is the time to explore all the possibilities. We can work out a compromise, Hannah. We could work out a way to divide our time and our work between San Francisco and Glacier Bay.”

“Who would give up the most time? Which one of us would leave his work behind? How much of your work in San Francisco would you give up for me?” His hesitation before he answered was slight, but she saw it.

“As long as I’m writing, I’ll be happy.”

She jumped up and began to pace the room. “No! I won’t let you. You’d be miserable.”

“I wouldn’t. I told you—”

“And then you’d grow to hate me.” She whirled on him, interrupting him. “I won’t give up my work for any man, and I won’t ask that of you.”

“Hannah,” he said, reaching for her, but she sidestepped him. “I’m not asking you to give up your work.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“You called me your dream woman. You’ve assigned all your dreams to me. You say you’ve given up that image of a sweet, old-fashioned girl, and yet you envision the hearth fire and the lace curtains and the children.” She stopped her pacing and faced him, hands on her hips. “Jim, you haven’t given up that dream woman. You’re merely trying to make me fit the mold.”

“No. I love you the way you are.”

“Independent, stubborn, opinionated . . .”

“Dedicated, generous, and very, very feminine.”

“I won’t do the lace-curtain bit,”

“Forget the damned lace curtains.” He jumped up from the table. Taking her by the shoulders, he forced her to look at him. “I love you, Hannah. And I mean to have you. It’s as simple as that.”

Hallie’s first marriage played through Hannah’s mind—Robert, domineering and demanding, and Hallie, losing her freedom. She wouldn’t fall into the same trap as her twin sister.

“No,” she shouted. “No man can have me.”

Jim’s lips crushed down on hers. He hadn’t meant to do it this way, but what in the hell could a man do against the stubbornness of Dr. Hannah Donovan? He felt the swift yielding of her body, and his own rose to meet the challenge. As he slipped her robe from her shoulders, his last thought was that Hannah had been raising some legitimate questions, and he should be addressing them. But who could blame a man for being distracted by the wild, wanton pleasure of this fire-and-smoke woman?

Lifting her in his arms, he carried her to the hearth rug. Thoughts of marriage were pushed aside as they lost themselves in the age-old rhythms of love.

 o0o

Jim’s time in Glacier Bay seemed to be over before it had begun.

That’s what Hannah was thinking as she stood in the small airport at Gustavus, waiting for Jim’s flight to be called.

“I’ll be back, Hannah.” Jim slid his hand under her lightweight sweater and caressed her back. “Don’t think I’m discouraged by your continued refusals. And don’t ever think that I’ll give up. I won’t.”

“It will be a losing battle, Jim. I’ve made up my mind and I won’t change.”

He smiled. “It seems to me you’ve said never before.”

Her cheeks pinked. “That was different. Going to bed with a man one finds” —she paused, searching his face— “attractive is quite a different thing from marriage.”

“Attractive? You find me attractive?”

She had only to look at the devilish twinkle in his eye to know she was being teased.

“You know what I mean.”

“Why, Dr, Hannah Donovan. Is that a blush I see?”

Behind them the loudspeaker blared.

“Your fight’s being called.”

He cupped her face and leaned down for one last desperate kiss. “I love you, Hannah. I chased you out of habit, followed you out of intrigue, and fell in love with you out of the blue. And I won’t let you go.” He released her face and started for the gate. Turning, he called. “Remember that, Dr. Donovan. I love you.”

She was oblivious to the smiling faces that turned in her direction. All she could think of was Jim Roman, the West Coast Warrior. He’d taken her by storm once more, and she wasn’t sure she’d survived this invasion.

She walked to the window and watched until his plane became a mere speck in the sky, then she left the airport, climbed into her gray van, and headed back to her cabin.

 o0o

For the next two days she wrestled with the loneliness and the feeling that she’d turned loose something precious. In spite of her turmoil, her work didn’t suffer. Instead, she noticed the same sharp edge of awareness she’d had since Jim Roman came into her life. Strike another Rai episode, she thought. That part of her past became a closed chapter.

But it seemed to her that there were still insurmountable problems in her relationship with Jim. She couldn’t be that simple dream woman he wanted. All she could do was bide her time.

 o0o

It was the letters from Hallie and from San Francisco that set her into action.

Going through her mail at the institute on the Tuesday night after Jim had left, she came across Hallie’s letter.

Hannah,
it said,
I know I promised that I would never lecture again, but you’ve been on my mind. A part of me feels your unease, and I don’t know what’s going on. You’re never near the phone when I call. Is it love, Hannah? If so, please know this: Love is worth any risk and there is no problem that is too big to solve.

She laid aside Hallie’s letter and went through the rest of her mail. There were the usual requests for her to give lectures, a few applications from marine biology graduates looking for work, and a letter from San Francisco. Hannah opened if first. It was a job offer.

For years there had been a difference of opinion in the scientific community about the benefits of keeping whales in captivity for study and later releasing them to the wild. Hannah always had been of the school that preferred studying them in the wild. Dr. Paley Overstreet, renowned cetologist from San Francisco, wanted her to do some work with whales in captivity. He hoped to create a crossover of scientists and perhaps a meeting of the minds on the question of captivity versus in-the-wild studies.

Hannah pondered Dr. Overstreet’s offer for a long time. Like a counterpoint to a melody, the phrase
love is worth any risk
kept running through her mind. At last she flung the letters aside and started back toward her cabin.

Pete was waiting for her on the trail. Summer will be over soon, Hannah thought as they made their way through the misty evening light. When her cabin came into view, she pictured herself spending another winter there. For the first time since she’d come to Glacier Bay, the thought brought no thrill. She’d have the Yukon Quest, of course, and her work was always exciting but something would be missing.

Suddenly Hannah knew what that something was: love. She’d accepted Jim as a challenge, seduced him out of curiosity, and fallen in love with him out of need. Yes, she finally admitted to herself, need. She needed Jim Roman, and there was only one thing to do about it—take the risk.

Her steps quickened as she neared her front porch. She had problems to solve and plans to make. She’d always been very good at those two things. And now, she decided she was going to excel.