She could feel his eyes on her. “Thank God, you’re not. But you could try to be cordial, at least. You look as if you expect to be executed,” he said through his teeth.
She gave him a false, over-bright smile. “You want me to look like this? I’ll smile like a lighthouse, if that’s what you want. You’re the man in charge. You command, I obey.”
His eyes flashed angrily. “One of these days you’re going to push me too far.”
“And you’ll get nasty? You mean nastier than usual?”
Jonathan laid down his fork very carefully and the anger in his eyes intensified. “Stop the sarcasm, Kelly. You and I will be living here together and I’ve no intention of spending the winter sparring with you.”
“You know the alternative.”
Without answering, he began eating again—several helpings of the casserole and a large piece of pie. Kelly pushed her food around on her plate, knowing she should eat but not liking the feel of the food in her mouth. Instead, she drank several cups of coffee and rested her elbows on the table.
When Jonathan finished, he took his plate to the sink. Kelly scraped hers into a pan for Charlie, added the leftover casserole to it, and went to the door. Charlie bounded in the moment she opened it. He stood looking at Jonathan, then finally dropped the battered frisbee and, with a wag of his tail, began to gulp down the food. As he licked the pan clean, he moved it farther and farther into the room until it came up against Jonathan’s foot. Charlie looked up at him and gave a low growl. Surprised, Kelly burst into peals of laughter.
“Charlie! You uncouth dog! You’re not supposed to growl at Jonathan Winslow Templeton the Third. You’re supposed to grovel at his feet.” Kelly knew it was the Scotch talking, but she didn’t care. “Be nice to him, Charlie, and he’ll have a nice, big bone flown in from Boston.” She poured another drink.
While she was washing the dishes, she had two more drinks and only vaguely heard Jonathan talking to Charlie and shutting the door after letting him out. She saw the hand reach out and take the bottle of Scotch and set it on the top shelf in the cabinet. She wanted to giggle. Did he think she wouldn’t reach up and get it if she wanted more? She left the dishes on the drainboard and walked on unsteady legs to the door of her bedroom. With one hand on the doorframe to steady herself, she turned and tried to focus her eyes on Jonathan’s face.
“I’m going to bed,” she enunciated very clearly. “You can do as you please. Sleep on the couch or in my father’s bed, if you can find blankets.” She giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “Or sleep out in the snow with Charlie.” Waving her hand carelessly, she swayed, then turned to go, but her feet wouldn’t move. Jonathan caught her as she fell forward, his hands under her armpits. “I’m not sleeping with you. Do you hear? I hate the sight of you. Stay, if you’ve no more pride than to stay where you’re not wanted, but you’ll not get any pleasure out of my company!” The words had been burning in her head all evening and now they shot out at a frantic rate, clear and unwavering. She tried to stand up straight and push his hands away from her.
“You’ve had too much to drink,” he said, apparently amused.
“Which is no business of yours.” Her head was whirling and she found herself leaning against him for support. She closed her eyes. “Oh, my head!” she groaned.
He lifted her as if she weighed no more than a feather. Her head was swimming dizzily and she couldn’t focus her eyes. She was only half aware that he was carrying her, then he lowered her to something soft and comfortable. She wanted to sleep, but his movements irritated her. Dimly she felt her shoes being removed and then her jeans. She tried to push him away when he lifted her to slip the shirt off her back. At last she was allowed to lay back and he covered her with something soft and warm. Almost instantly she was asleep.
During the night she began to dream lovely, wonderful, intensely exciting dreams. She was back with Jack in the king-sized bed at Captain Cook’s Hotel in Anchorage, where they had spent the first two days after their marriage. She was submitting to his lovemaking, burning pleasurably under the smooth caress of his hands. The warmth of his body seemed to melt hers so that it molded to his shape. The dream was so deeply real she could feel his fingers on her bare skin searching for all the sensitive places and finding them.
She moaned aloud as his lips explored the warm curve of her throat and descended to the rounded flesh of her breast, fondling the stiff peaks until she turned her face into his neck and kissed his damp skin.
“Kiss me, darling,” he breathed in her ear. “Kiss me and love me.”
“Yes! Oh, yes!” Her lips, warm and eager, sought his that were firm, yet gentle, hardening with passion only at her insistence. Her hand stroked his wide chest, dark with rough hairs, and moved down to the flat, smooth-skinned stomach. Sensuous, languid, she took her time and explored his body boldly, giving herself up to this wonderful dream. “Jack . . . Jack . . .”
His mouth silenced hers and his palms moved down over her body and curved against her hips. He whispered love words in her ear and she felt his cheek against her breast. And then his mouth slid gently over the white skin until it enclosed her nipple. He repeated the caress, his mouth seductive, lazy, setting her ablaze with hunger. He was invading every inch of her now, exploring her body boldly, making her give herself up to him. He began to kiss her mouth deeply and Kelly slid her arms around his neck and pulled on the hair on the back of his head. His breath came fast and thick, hers light and gasping.
“Say you love me.” The husky whisper in her ear was insistent. “Say it, darling.”
“I love you, Jack. Jack, love me. Love me.”
The laugh was low and tender as he covered her face with feverish kisses. “Oh, Kelly,” he said thickly. “You’ve been under my skin for so long, tormenting me, driving me crazy. I’ve missed you so and I’ve wanted to make love to you for so long . . .” He pulled her head back and their mouths clung. He held her body between his roving hands and she made no effort to stop him. The pleasure rose to intolerable heights and she lost consciousness of everything but the powerful body that was driving her toward weightlessness. Now she was floating down from a great height and her stomach clenched in fierce panic. She dropped sharply, and cried out wildly, her hands clinging frantically to the only solid thing in her tilting world.
Soothing words calmed and reassured her. Hands gently stroked her taut body. Her heart settled in to a quieter pace as the tension and panic left her. Did he know he had taken her heart? She began to cry. Jack had taken her heart, but Jonathan had taken and crushed her bubbly spirit, her romantic illusions. She had fought to hold Jack, but in the end he had flown from her grasp. Now, like the princess in the fairy tale, she was under the spell of the wicked prince, Jonathan, who would destroy her. Finally her sleep deepened and the nightmare left her.
The sensation of something against her mouth woke her abruptly. Her eyes flew open and stared into amused brown eyes. She was lying naked in Jonathan’s arms, her legs imprisoned between his. He had been kissing her. He laughed at the expression on her face. There was a relaxed charm about him that maddened her. His hand was on her breast, fingering her nipple!
Her face burned scarlet. She hadn’t been dreaming! She had made love with him. “Oh! You’re even lower than I thought!” She tried to push him away, but her strength was as nothing against his. “You . . . you took my clothes off!”
“You didn’t object at the time,” he pointed out with a grin that further infuriated her.
“I didn’t know . . . You took advantage . . .”
“You were plastered,” he interrupted, grinning.
“You had no right. You knew I didn’t want you,” she snapped.
“I had every right . . . and you did want me.”
She shook her head like an enraged child, her face livid. “I did not want you, Jonathan!” She began to struggle.
He clamped his arms and legs around her and lowered his lips to her cheek. “You wanted Jack. It was just like those two days we spent in bed after we got married . . . only better.”
Her eyes burned up at him resentfully. “Enjoy your little triumph. It won’t happen again.”
“Be honest. Your appetite for me is as great as mine is for you.” His hands moved possessively over her, his fingers trembling. “You can feel how I want you. Admit you want me, too.”
“I admit I enjoy being with a man. Any man,” she taunted.
His hand moved to her hair and jerked her head around to face him. “That’s a lie!” he said harshly. He looked at her mouth, that trembling mouth that had always fascinated him. “Your mouth is too beautiful to spit such lies.” He kissed it gently before his lips hovered over hers so that his tongue could trace its way into the corners. “You’re a lovely liar,” he said, his eyes soft, his hands gentle in her hair. “Don’t be embarrassed for wanting me, darling.”
She felt as though he had penetrated her subconscious and raped her mind as well as her body. She must have been conscious at some level to remember what he had done to her and how his stroking hands had fired her desire for him. But she feared her blind, desperate need for love. It was too dangerous to care for anyone.
“Sex!” The word exploded from her and her eyes filled with tears. “That’s all it is, Jonathan. Let me go, please. I want to get up,” she said tiredly.
“Maybe it is just sex, but it’s a start,” he said patiently and moved away from her.
Kelly threw back the covers and walked naked into the bathroom. She could feel his eyes on her, but didn’t care. She remembered the long nights during the first weeks of their marriage when Jack’s passion, the force of which carried her over the first few times when she bared her body to him, made her feel as if it was natural and beautiful for him to view her from every angle.
She took her robe from the hook behind the door, slipped her feet into warm scuffs, and passed through her father’s room to come out into the living area. It was warm. A big log blazed in the fireplace and the cookstove was roaring pleasantly. She glanced toward the door. The floor and doormat were dry. Since no one had come in from outside, Jonathan must have built up the fire. She was surprised he knew how. She filled the coffee pot and set it on the stove. During the few short weeks she had been home, she had fallen into a routine: get up, stoke up the fires, put on the coffee pot, wind the clock, turn on the electric hot water tank. She did these things, now, automatically, and went to stand beside the window.
It was going to be a clear day with a blue sky. Soon the sun would be up, its low rays bathing the landscape in a warm, winter-rose color.
She loved this land of the very old and the very new. Ancient Eskimo and Indian cultures lived side by side with modern pulp mills, fisheries, and giant oil companies. Where else in the world were there glaciers and strawberries, dog teams and airplanes, skin boats (the design of which had not changed for a thousand years) and late model outboard motors? It seemed ironic that she and Jonathan should come together in this land of extremes.
The day promised to be clear enough to allow the first guests to view Mount McKinley from the lodge windows. Kelly thought of the poster she had painstakingly printed and framed to hang beside the window. “Mount McKinley, called
Denali,
meaning ‘home of the sun,’ by the Indians, is one of the most dramatic sights in Alaska. The light tan granite mass, crown of the Alaska Range, climbs upward to a height of almost four miles. No other mountain rises so far above its own base. The upper two-thirds of the peak is permanently snow-covered, and often takes on a pinkish glow at sunrise and sunset.”
Thinking about the mighty mountain, this place her father had built, this home she loved, stiffened her resolve to stay here. She would not let Jonathan evict her and Mike and Marty from their home! They belonged here, he didn’t.
Kelly turned from the window to see him taking coffee cups from the drain-basket beside the sink. She looked at him with new eyes. He wore a flannel shirt, obviously new, jeans, and wool socks on his feet. Dressed like this, he seemed more Jack than Jonathan, but he
was
Jonathan, and he could take all this away from her. She picked up her purse from the couch and took out her cigarettes and lighter.
“When did you start smoking?” He had poured two cups of coffee and set them on the table.
“I don’t smoke much. Only when I’m nervous,” she retorted.
“You’re nervous now?”
“Wouldn’t you be if everything you loved could be taken from you on a whim?”
He stood looking at her. He seemed taller in the jeans, tall and tough, a bargaining Bostonian with an eye to the main chance, even willing to dress the part in order to fit into the scheme of things.
His darkened eyes flickered with annoyance, but he spoke calmly. “I haven’t threatened to take your home away from you.”
She shrugged. “Same thing. I either suffer your presence or Marty and Mike and I get out.”
“I doubt if you suffer, Kelly,” he said drily. “Come drink your coffee.”
“Thank you, no. I’ll take my bath now. I only run the electric heater long enough to get water for a bath. Electricity is expensive here. Of course, you’d know nothing about that.” She flicked the end of her cigarette into the fireplace and glanced at him. He sat at the table, stirring his coffee.
The C.B. radio came on with an emergency call for Mike. Kelly waited until she heard Mike answer, then went into the bathroom and filled the small tub with warm water.
When she came out of the warm, steamy bathroom, her bedroom seemed cold, but she shut the door connecting it to the kitchen and took out flannel-lined jeans and a shirt. Then she noticed her bed had been neatly made and the clothes she had worn the day before folded and laid out on the end. She dressed, ran a comb through her hair, and went in her stocking feet to the kitchen. She was pouring coffee when Jonathan came to the door of her father’s room.
“Are you feeling better . . . besides being nervous?” he asked drily.
“Much better.” There was almost a pleasant tone to her voice. “You’ll find sheets and blankets in the chest at the end of the bed.”