CHAPTER SIX
COLIE FELT DIFFERENT, more mature, more in step with the world. Now, when she watched movies on television or entertainment news and she heard about couples living together, it didn’t shock her. In fact, she envied them. She wanted to be near J.C. all the time.
Since they’d been intimate, it was almost an obsession, to be with him. Even if she just heard him on the phone and he said only one or two words. Apparently he felt the same way, because he met her for lunch just about every day and they went to movies all the time.
Then, a week after they’d been intimate, J.C. grew insistent when he took her home with him for steak and potatoes, the only other dish he could cook well.
Colie was nervous about it, because it had been so uncomfortable the first time. But she knew that if she started drawing back, J.C. would leave. She was certain of it. He liked her, of course, but more than that, he was hungry for a woman. She didn’t have any illusions that he wouldn’t stray if she refused him.
So she didn’t refuse him.
As he’d promised, he took longer with her. But her body, still recovering from the shock and pain of the first time, was uncooperative. She loved the foreplay. He was very skilled, and she enjoyed the feel of his mouth on her bare skin, the touch of his hands intimate on her. She gave every indication that she was enjoying it as much as he was.
That was, until he penetrated her. She ground her teeth together and tried to relax, but it was almost as uncomfortable as it had been the first time.
J.C. didn’t notice. He was starving for her. It had been a week of agony, while he tried to occupy his mind and keep it off the delicious hour he’d spent in bed with Colie. Now, here she was, soft and warm and eager, and he went over the edge almost at once. He tried to slow down. He couldn’t. It had been a long time between women. His body was totally out of control.
He shuddered and cried out, the pleasure biting into him so hard that he thought he might pass out. She was still tight. He wondered why. She didn’t respond, or demand, as his other women had. She did whatever he wanted her to do. But he felt guilty, because he knew she wasn’t feeling the same pleasure he felt when he took her.
He lay beside her, calming slowly, his big hand tender in her hair as he held her beside him.
She didn’t like sex. She was certain of it now. But she loved J.C. Being close to him like this, having him be tender with her, was so wonderful that she accepted whatever he wanted to do to her, for the closeness.
An old adage came to her as she lay against him. Men gave love to get sex, and women gave sex to get love. It had never seemed as appropriate as it did right now.
“I hate being away from you,” he said out of the blue. “Even at night. Especially at night. I want you here, all the time.”
She caught her breath. “You do?”
His arm contracted in the soft darkness of the room. “Don’t you want to be with me all the time?” he asked.
“Of course I do.”
He drew in a long breath. “Your father isn’t going to like it,” he said curtly.
“It’s my life,” she began.
“Yes, it is. But choices have consequences.” He hesitated. “Colie, I’m not proposing marriage. You understand that, don’t you? I’m asking you to live with me. That’s all. And I’m not promising anything.”
She felt sadness all the way to her bones, but it was no use protesting. She loved him so much that she was willing to give up everything just to be with him. She knew that if their situations were reversed, he wouldn’t give up anything for her. He didn’t love her.
But if she lived with him, if she took the gamble, it might pay off. Look at how she’d won on the slot machines at the casino. If life was like that, she might get lucky. It was a pipe dream, but she wanted J.C. too much to refuse.
“I’d like that,” she said simply.
He let out the breath he’d been holding. “We’ll take turns cooking,” he promised. “And in case you wondered, there won’t be other women. I’ll never cheat on you.”
She laughed. “I believe you, about the blonde geologist.”
He chuckled. “I know. I’m just making the statement.”
“Thanks.”
He kissed her damp hair. “I’m going too fast with you, in bed,” he confessed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone. It will get better,” he added. “I promise it will. I’ll learn to slow down, to wait for you. I want you to feel as much pleasure as I do. You give me the moon, Colie. I’ve never known such satisfaction.”
She smiled. “I’m glad.” She nuzzled closer. “You don’t have to worry about me. I love the closeness. I love lying with you like this. It would be more than enough for me, even without the other.”
That statement really worried him. She was as much as admitting that he didn’t satisfy her. He was going to work at his self-control. He hated cheating her.
“It will be get better,” he said again.
She just sighed and closed her eyes. “Okay.”
He smoothed over her bare back with his fingertips. He was frowning, although she couldn’t see it, in the darkness. He’d never known a woman who was so giving, so forgiving, so sweet and gentle. She was tender with him. His whole experience of women was with wildcats who didn’t want foreplay, didn’t want tenderness, they just wanted raw, carnal sex.
Colie was so different from them. Even the call girl, when she was fooling him, trying to play the innocent, had been demanding and hungry in bed. He was certain that Colie wasn’t totally naive, but she did give the impression of a woman who didn’t like sex. He hoped he could change her mind, make her feel what he did. It would just take time, he told himself. He could learn to slow down.
Unaware of his worrying thoughts, Colie nuzzled closer and enjoyed the feeling of oneness she got with him. She was going to live with him, be with him all the time.
Her heart fell. Her father wouldn’t rage and yell, nothing like that. But he’d be so disappointed in her. That was going to be the hardest thing of all. She’d toed the line her whole life. He’d blame J.C. for her downfall, when it was going to be her decision as much as his.
* * *
IN FACT, HER father said nothing. He’d known for some time how things were going.
“I said it before, but I’ll repeat it,” he said softly when her bags were packed and she was waiting for J.C. on the front porch. “I’ll always love you. Whatever happens, I’ll be right here if you need me.”
She hugged him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, fighting tears. “I can’t help it. I love him so much. Maybe he’ll change.”
The reverend, who’d heard too many sad tales that began like this and ended in misery, just sighed. “You can never tell,” he added.
He went back inside when he heard J.C. drive up.
J.C. helped Colie into the SUV and put her luggage in the back. He got in beside her, noting the traces of tears. He felt guilt all the way to his soul.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” he began.
She looked up at him. “I love you,” she said simply. And the pain and sweetness of it was in the sad, resigned smile she gave him.
He pulled her close for a minute. He was sure he’d never had a woman say those words to him, in his whole life. Only his mother ever had. His sweet, kind little mother who’d gone through hell with an alcoholic husband who resented her and her child for taking away his dreams of being a rancher.
“I’ll take care of you,” he said quietly.
“I’ll take care of you, too, J.C.,” she said, and felt joy like a living thing, flowing through her veins.
That, too, was new. He laughed as he started the truck. “I don’t really need taking care of,” he confided. “I never will!”
* * *
A WEEK LATER, burning with fever and so sick that he couldn’t hold his head up, he had cause to remember that brash statement.
Colie sat with him, bathed the sweat away, ladled the antibiotic and cough syrup the doctor had given him into him and ignored his weak protests that he didn’t need nursing.
She knew he was lying. He looked at her as if she was Florence Nightingale, adoring her with those pale, glittery silver eyes as she fussed over him, fed him hot soup, made sure he had anything he needed to make him comfortable.
He’d rarely ever been sick in his life. He only remembered having a virus once, and his mother and father had left him at home, because the household depended on both paychecks just to keep going.
To be fair, his mother sat up with him at night, even so, feeding him chips of ice so that he didn’t get dehydrated. But it was nothing like this, with Colie caring for him so tenderly that he didn’t want to rush to get well again.
That was a weakness. He was ashamed of himself. Not too ashamed, though. It felt very good to have someone love him. No woman ever had, until Colie came along. He’d never thought of himself as a lovable person. She made him feel different inside, of worth. She built him up.
“I should be taking care of myself,” he protested, just once, while she fed him soup.
She smiled. “You’re so self-sufficient, J.C. It makes me feel good to do things for you. Even if it’s just rarely.”
He managed a laugh. “Ivy,” he accused. “You’re wrapping around me like ivy.”
“Be careful,” she said with a mock taunt. “Ivy can even bring down big trees if it wraps around too tight.”
He sighed. “Not a worry. Not right now, anyway.” He studied her. “Have you gone to the health clinic yet?”
She flushed. They’d had this discussion about birth control. He said that what he used was risky. He wasn’t confident about the shot they gave women to prevent children; a fellow worker on Ren’s ranch had seen it cause terrible weight gain in his own wife. But the pill had been around for years and years.
“I’ll go when you’re better,” she promised.
“We’ve had one slip already,” he reminded her. His protection had torn. It had worried him, although she wasn’t showing any symptoms of pregnancy. He knew what they were, because Merrie had given birth a few months ago. He and Ren were friends, so he was around her a lot while she was carrying their son.
“I know. But it wasn’t a good time to get pregnant,” she lied. She was very regular and it was dead center between periods; the very best time to get pregnant. She understood he didn’t want children. She wanted his child so much. She had this stupid, persistent hope that if she did get pregnant, he might change his mind about a lot of things.
He read that thought in her face. “Colie, I won’t change my mind,” he said forcefully; at least, as forcefully as a sick man could sound. “I don’t want to settle down. I like training cops overseas. I might get a yen to go back in the military or join a merc group. I’ll only stay with you as long as I’m free to go where I please. I won’t settle down. And there’s no way in hell you’re getting pregnant. Give it up.”
She drew in a wistful breath. “Hope springs eternal?” she ventured.
“It will get strangled, here,” he promised.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go to the health department next week. It won’t matter,” she added. “You’re too sick to do anything right now, anyway.”
He was. He didn’t like admitting it.
He studied her quietly while she fed him. She still wasn’t getting anything out of intimacy. She tried to fake it, but he knew. She was uncomfortable, tight, strung out, every single time. He wanted her to go on birth control because he had a feeling what he used for protection was the problem. She’d complained of a rash, and he knew it wasn’t a disease he’d given her—unless another lover before him had given her something. But he didn’t think it was disease. She might have an allergy.
“Colie, have you ever been tested for a latex allergy?” he asked out loud.
The spoon jumped in her hand. Fortunately, it was empty at the time. “A latex allergy? You mean, like rubber gloves?”
“I mean like the rubber things I use to keep you from getting pregnant,” he said starkly.
She just stared at him. That had never occurred to her. She had a rash every time he made love to her.
“I, well, I never was tested for any sort of allergy. I do break out every time...” She flushed.
“It would explain a few things,” he remarked. “Next week. For sure.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you have a family physician?”
The flush got worse. “J.C., he goes to my dad’s church. In fact, he sings in the choir. I...couldn’t.”
He really hadn’t considered how living with him was damaging her, and her father, in the small community. He’d lived in big cities for a long time, so long that modern attitudes had become commonplace to him. It was different in Catelow. And her father was a minister. He preached against what he considered immorality—like two people living together without the sanctity of marriage. He hated the sudden guilt he felt.
“The health department is fine. Really,” he said.
She nodded and fed him more soup.
* * *
SHE GOT A prescription for the pill, which she was to start at the beginning of her next period. She had J.C. drive her to Jackson Hole to get it filled, where there would be a pharmacist who didn’t know her.
“I’m sorry,” she said when they were on the way back home.
“I understand.” He caught her hand tight in his. “I really do, Colie.”
“I guess I don’t understand things as well as I would, if I were older.”
“Older,” he scoffed. “What are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three? Rod mentioned that you’d graduated from school last year. I assumed he meant college...”
“I’m nineteen,” she said starkly.
He stood on the brakes and stopped in the middle of the road. “What?”
“I’m nineteen,” she repeated, wondering why he looked so devastated. “I graduated from high school last year. The graduation was in the papers, I thought Rod would have mentioned it to you?”
“He said you graduated.” He was trying to catch his breath. No wonder her father had been so protective of her, so distant with J.C. She was barely out of high school. A teenager! Why hadn’t he realized...?
“Now you’re going to torture yourself because you think you’re robbing the cradle. Listen, I’ll be twenty in a month,” she pointed out. “Lots of girls get married at eighteen.” She flushed. “I mean, live with people. Other people.”
“Dear God.”
“J.C.,” she began, worried because of the look on his face.
He started the SUV moving again. He felt such guilt that it was choking him. Why hadn’t he known? Well, he lived on the ranch and he didn’t go into town much. He didn’t read the local paper or listen to the news, he didn’t go to church. He knew Rod, but they’d grown distant in the past few months since Rod mustered out of the military. He hadn’t known much about Rod’s little sister until he went to supper at their house. She worked at a law office and she’d mentioned taking courses in business.
“You took business courses,” he mentioned, thinking out loud.
“Sure. Just after I got the job with the law firm. I went at night. I only needed a couple of courses, just enough to help me learn the software they used and how to cope with dictation and stuff.”
“Nineteen.”
“Twenty next month,” she repeated. “I don’t understand why you’re so conflicted, J.C. I’m not a child.”
“Colie, I’m thirty-two.”
“Oh, yes, and you’ve got gray hair and you have to walk with a cane...”
“I’m serious!” he shot back, more forcefully than he meant to. He grimaced when he saw her hurt expression. He caught her hand again and held it tight. “Almost thirteen years between us. At your age, that’s a lot. I wish I’d known how old you were, before...”
“But you didn’t. You don’t. I love you, you silly man,” she chided. “What has that got to do with age?”
The words went through him like sugary sweet joy. He loved hearing her say it. But it didn’t assuage the guilt he felt. “No wonder your father didn’t like me.”
“Daddy wouldn’t have liked you if I’d been thirty,” she pointed out. “You’re not a person of faith. I can accept that. He can’t. He has a different view of life than I do. Daddy lives in the past, J.C. It’s a new world.”
“New.” He drew in a long breath. He glanced at her hungrily and knew that he’d die before he’d give her up, no matter her age. “Twenty next month, huh?”
She grinned. “Twenty next month. I’ll try to get at least four or five gray hairs started, if that will help your conscience.”
He laughed at the blunt statement. “Okay. We’ll muddle through somehow.”
“That’s the spirit!”
* * *
THEY WERE STILL using the same thing for birth control that they’d started out with. They had to, because she couldn’t start the pill until her period. She told J.C.
“You’re not enjoying this,” he pointed out when they were lying together. He was sated. She wasn’t.
“I love being with you, any way at all,” she said. “You’re the most perfect man who ever lived, and I love you madly.”
“But you don’t enjoy having sex with me,” he persisted worriedly.
“When I start on the pill, it will change,” she promised, hoping it wasn’t going to be a lie. She was uncomfortable when he went into her. She wasn’t sure the lack of latex was going to solve the problem.
His fingers tangled in her hair. “Maybe I need to read a few books.”
She burst out laughing. “Maybe I do, too.”
* * *
SHE WAS JUST leaving the café after lunch. J.C. had gone to Jackson Hole to get some new equipment he’d ordered, so she was eating alone. She came face-to-face with old Mrs. Meyer, one of the elders of her father’s church.
“Hi, Mrs. Meyer,” Colie said with a smile.
The woman didn’t return the smile. She looked at Colie as if she was dirty. “Have you no pride?” she asked quietly. “Have you no shame? Your father is a minister. He stands in the pulpit and preaches morality while his own daughter lives openly with a man in this small community.”
Colie flushed. “I love him...”
“I married at twenty,” Mrs. Meyer went on. “He was a good, kind man. He said that any man who truly loved a woman would want to give her his name, give her children, become a part of the community.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Your lover gives nothing to the community. He never goes to church. He’s an outsider who doesn’t want to fit in. You used to be a person of faith. What’s become of you, Colie? Your mother, God rest her soul, would be ashamed of you!”
Before Colie could even think of a lukewarm comeback, the old woman turned and toddled away, leaning heavily on her cane.
Colie went back to work and went through the motions, but she was eaten up with guilt. She’d felt it often enough, but to have one of her father’s congregation speak to her like that brought home just how much she was shaming Reverend Thompson with her behavior.
“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked gently as they were getting ready to leave. “You’ve been unsettled all afternoon.”
“My father is a minister and I’m living with a man,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize how much I was shaming him.” She looked up. “We make decisions and never consider how our actions will affect the people we love.”
Lucy drew in a breath. “Everything we do affects everybody who loves us, I guess,” she said. “I’m sorry. I can only imagine how conflicted you are.”
“Conflicted,” she replied, “is a very good word.”
* * *
LATER, J.C. SAW the emotional upset and questioned her about it.
“It was Mrs. Meyer. She’s an elder in our church...” she hesitated. She hadn’t been to church since she moved in with J.C., another strike against her. “In Daddy’s church,” she amended. “She said that my behavior was shameful, that my father was having to live down what I was doing. He’s a minister, preaching against immorality, and his only daughter is living openly in sin.” She laughed hollowly, trying to make a joke of it.
J.C. winced. She was so young. He gave a thought to her father, who’d never yelled at him or cursed him when he certainly must have felt like it. He was a forgiving man; something J.C. never had been. He held grudges. A few, he held for life.
He took her into his arms and rocked her. “I’m sorry. I’ve never had to consider public opinion. But Catelow is a very small town. I’m sure it’s hard for your father to understand that not everybody follows a narrow path.”
“I guess so.”
He held her tighter. He knew he was going to regret this, but he valued Colie. He didn’t want her hurt. “You can tell people we’re engaged,” he said after a minute.
She drew back and looked up at him with soft, worshipping green eyes. “What did you say?”
“I said, you can tell people we’re engaged. It will keep gossip down, maybe,” he added. His face hardened. “I’m still not interested in marriage, Colie. But if you spread it around that I’m serious about you, it will make things easier for your father. He’s a good man,” he added heavily. “I don’t like hurting him any more than you do. But I am what I am. I’ve never seen a good marriage,” he added shortly. “I grew up more or less an orphan from the age of eleven. A settled, happy home is an illusion to me. It’s not real.”
She searched his pale eyes and saw such pain there that she grimaced. “I had a happy one,” she said softly. “A mother who loved us, who took care of us, who loved my father deeply. He loved her. We had little tiffs now and again. Everyone does. But we loved each other. It was a happy childhood.”
His face hardened even more. “We come from different worlds, different backgrounds,” he said. “Part of my ancestry is First Nations—Blackfoot. My father practiced his native religion until my mother died. She was buried under Catholic rites, because she was Roman Catholic. I’ve never been a person of faith. She took me to Mass every Sunday, but most of the foster homes where I lived were anything but religious.”
There was something dark and cold in his eyes as he said that. She wondered if there had been an even worse experience than his mother dying because his father was drinking and got behind the wheel of a car.
He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to ask. “I don’t talk about my childhood. That’s private.”
Private. When they were living together, sleeping together. He was shutting her out. She realized belatedly that he almost never talked about his past, about any of his likes or dislikes. She knew so little about him.
“My life is an open book,” she mused. “Yours is a mystery novel.”
He laughed shortly. “Not bad.”
She hugged him. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, except that I love you more than anyone in the world.”
It made him glow inside when she said that. He ate it up like honey. He held her close and kissed her hungrily.
“I have to go to Iraq next week,” he said at her ear.
“So soon?” she wailed.
“I’m sorry. I made a commitment months ago. I can’t cancel at this late date.” He smoothed back her hair. “When I come home, you’ll be on the pill and I’ll make sure you feel what I feel when we’re intimate. Missing each other will make the homecoming explosively passionate.”
She laughed. “I like that. Explosively passionate.”
He kissed her again. “I think the latex is the problem.”
“We could not use it...?”
“No.” He let her go. “I’m not taking any chances with you, Colie. You know that already.”
She sighed. “I know it.”
“You need to stay with your father and Rod while I’m gone,” he added quietly. His thick eyebrows met. “I’d worry myself sick if you stayed out here alone. It’s too deserted. We get all sorts of people on the ranch, part-timers and visitors alike. We do vet them, but there’s always that one who slips between the cracks.” He framed her face in his hands and studied her hungrily. “I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. All the color would go out of the world.”
It was as close to a declaration of love as he’d ever come and she realized it. She reached up and kissed him so tenderly that he felt his heart run wild. He drew her close and deepened the kiss to intimacy.
“I’ll stay at home while you’re gone,” she promised.
He swung her up in his arms. “Meanwhile,” he whispered, “we can make some more memories...”
Latex and all, she was thinking, but she gave in, as she always did, dreading the discomfort but loving the exquisite closeness. In bed was the only place she was ever allowed that close. J.C. was standoffish, aloof, quiet when they were around other people. In private, he was passionate and tender and almost loving.
She enjoyed the intimacy, even if she didn’t enjoy the sex. Maybe he was right, she pondered. Maybe the pill would make all the difference, even though he’d be overseas when she started it. Nevertheless, he’d come home again.
* * *
SHE WORRIED. SHE COULDN’T hide it. He packed and she watched, her heart in her eyes.
“It’s dangerous, where you’re going,” she pointed out.
He chuckled. “It’s dangerous where I am,” he countered. He glanced at her. “Ever try to hold down a bull in a field while you’re treating an injury?”
“Well, I know that,” she said. “But bulls don’t have guns.”
He stopped what he was doing, pulled her up and kissed her softly. “I’ve been at this for a long time. I don’t take chances, and I know the people I’m working with. Yes, there are risks. But there are risks when you drive a car, walk up a hill. Life doesn’t come with guarantees. I live every single day as if it were my last day on earth. That’s how I get through it. Yesterday is a memory and tomorrow is a hope. All we really have is today.”
She thought about that. “I guess that’s so. And on my today, you’re leaving.”
He kissed her nose. “Only for a few weeks. When I come back, we’ll have a long, slow, sweet celebration. How about that?”
She grinned. “Okay.”
“I’m going to miss Christmas,” he said suddenly, scowling.
“You can bring me back a cactus or something,” she said.
He chuckled. “I’ll manage something better than that, I promise.”
“Just bring yourself back,” she said solemnly. “Because there’s nothing I want for Christmas more than you. Okay?”
He hugged her close, feeling as if he was empty inside as he contemplated weeks without her. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll miss you, sweet girl.”
“Not nearly as much as I’ll miss you,” she whispered back.
He kissed her with what felt like desperation. She kissed him back the same way. She had a horrible, cold feeling that everything was about to change. And not for the better.