DESI'S RESCUE Read online

  The thought caught in her throat, sharp and terrifying, and she even found her hand flying up to her throat, covering it protectively. How could she do this? Let him in?

  As she hesitated, Tam was beneath her, his big head nestled on the pillows, his fine gentle eyes patient, his hands tangled in hers. As she looked down at him, so afraid and so yearning all at once, he took her hand and carried it to his mouth and pressed kisses to her knuckles. "You look so pretty in the firelight."

  Desi melted forward and pressed her mouth to his. "So do you," she whispered. "But what if I tell you I'm too shy to be the leader?"

  He smiled, and shifted so that she was beneath him. "I'd tell you I don't mind leading." His hand covered her breast, moving in happy discovery, his long fingers gauging the weight and depth of her curves. He kissed her again and laced their legs together, pressing his hips and a fierce thrust of erection against her pelvic bone in the most ancient of dances.

  Desi let herself drift in the moment, letting him stoke the fires in her body, feeling blisters of arousal explode from cell to cell, across her lips, over her forehead, gathering in sharp delight in her nipples and belly and sex. His mouth moved over her lips, her chin, down her neck, lazily, and then he paused for a moment and braced himself so he could unfasten her blouse and spread open the cloth. "I've been looking forward to this part," he said in a voice that was a little ragged, and he opened her bra, revealing her breasts.

  Gathering her flesh gently and with genuine pleasure, he bent and tasted each nipple in turn. "You have beautiful breasts, Desdemona. I've been thinking about them ever since you came into my bar without a bra."

  A shudder moved down her back, and Desi moaned against her will as he drew circles around her nipples, drew the taut flesh into his hot, wet mouth, let go, began again. "That feels so good, so good," she whispered, and pulled on his shirt. "Take off your shirt. I need to feel you, too."

  He obliged, revealing taut, smooth flesh, that bare scattering of hair. He pressed down against her, sighing as their chests met and their lips tangled, their limbs.

  But Desi was finished with foreplay. "I hope I don't give the wrong impression," she said suddenly, "but I just want you in me. Please."

  His laugher was low and soft, and he lifted himself up to take off his jeans. Desi didn't wait for him to take hers, she skimmed out of them, for once not caring that her tummy was not perfect or her arms were not thin. Her thoughts were not on what she looked like, but what he looked like—

  And Tam, naked, was worth a moment of admiration. He knelt before her, and when he would have come forward, Desi put a hand on his hard, flat belly to stop him. "Wait one minute," she said, "and let me look at you."

  He stopped and let her admire him—the beautiful rounds of shoulders and smoothly muscled chest and belly, lower to the high round of his hips and the powerful, if scarred, thighs. And there, nested in a neat triangle of black curls, the weight of his sex, just now thrusting out proudly. Desi felt another layer of something fall away, and she moved so she could cup his genitals in her right hand and bent to taste him. He put his hand in her hair, making a pleased sound, and said, "Another time, sweet," and pulled her up, then pressed her back again, taking a moment to open the foil package he'd taken out of his pocket. He handed her the condom, and Desi willingly put it in place, suddenly dizzy with the desire to have him in her.

  They seemed, all at once, to be one body, one mind, one organism driving toward a single goal. Tam gathered her into his arms and spread her legs forcefully and plunged his tongue into her mouth as he plunged his member deeply into her waiting sex, and they both made fierce, sharp noises at the pleasure. Desi grabbed him, his hips, and in a panting, whispery voice said, "Don't move for one second," so she could revel in the delirious sense of being filled, stretched, expanded.

  He held still, his mouth moving, and then, slowly, he began to move, and Desi moved with him.

  And it wasn't like anything she'd ever known. There it was, one minute, sex. Good sex and sex that she needed, sex with a man who was kind and had shown himself to be nurturing, but in all, sex, like food, a thing for the body.

  And then, in the next minute, her body was alight, head to toe and her brain was illuminated, and some other part of her, what some called a soul or a spirit, that was illuminated, too, and it seemed that if she were to weep or sweat, the fluid that would come out of her would be drops of white light. Over her, Tam kissed her face, her mouth, her neck, moving, and she moved with him, and there was a moment when she thought, Oh, this is too much, we're in trouble and Tam said, "Open your eyes, Desi," and she did, and so they looked at each other. He was peering down into her eyes and she was captured in his fern-soft irises as the energy between them built and spilled and tumbled them into another world.

  * * *

  Tam fell against her neck with a sense of being spun around in a cyclone. He nestled his nose next to her neck, moving up against her jaw, her body pliant and warm and quivering beneath his, and he thought, Uh-oh.

  After a while they parted and he pulled the blankets over them. Neither spoke. In the quiet darkness, with the fire flickering and cracking, Desi lay on his chest. He threaded his hands through her hair lazily. She traced his tattoos. "What do they draw on their faces, the women?"

  "Curlicues," Tam said lazily, his hand drawing slow, small circles on her bare back. "It goes around their mouths, like facial hair."

  He could feel her smile against his ribs. "How very patriarchal."

  "Yeah. It's traditional culture. Most are, yeah?"

  "I guess. Some Native American cultures are matriarchal. Navajo, for one."

  "Is that what Claude was? Navajo?"

  "Yes."

  He thought of a day in the pub, when a raucous lot of hikers had been celebrating the successful completion of their route. Claude had been buying a pair of pretty Germans beers, and chatting with them in what appeared to be very bad German. They kept laughing and teasing him, but another woman at the bar said, "He has a Bavarian accent."

  "He ain't no Indian, that's for sure," a Ute man sitting next to her said.

  Desi lift her head. "What are you thinking?"

  He trailed a lock of her hair through his fingers and considered. He wondered if they should just leave the subject of Claude all the way alone, but eventually they had to figure out who killed him. Every clue counted. "Somebody told me once that he didn't know enough about Navajo culture."

  "He grew up in the city," she said. "Denver."

  Tam nodded. She waited, stroking the length of his back in a slow, meditative way. "Why would he have a Bavarian accent when he spoke German?"

  "As far as I know," she said, "he only spoke English and a little Navajo. Well, and Spanish, of course. We met in South America. He was teaching and so was I."

  "I heard him speak German quite a bit," he said. "One of the tour groups that leads hikers on the Mariposa Trail is German, and Claude liked talking to them."

  "I see." She sighed, rolling away from him. "God, I was an idiot."

  Tam reached for her, pressing a kiss to her wrist. "No, you weren't. He was just a good liar, and you believe the best in people."

  "Do I?"

  He grinned. "You do. And we're not talking about your bastard of an ex anymore tonight."

  "No?"

  "No. We're going to have wild sex, over and over and over again."

  Desi's eyes went smoky. "Yeah?"

  "I'm going to find things out about your body that you never knew."

  And though she resisted, he pulled her inexorably toward him, pulling her naked and beautiful breasts onto his naked and smooth chest. The sensation exploded in about seven places in his body and mind and heart, and he had the sense to think, again, uh-oh. But it wasn't enough to stop him from kissing her again, and then spending three solid hours exploring every single inch of her body and letting her do the same to his, until they were both drained and limp as old clothes, and fell into a deep, dreamless
sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

  When Desi awakened the next morning, she was startled to discover Tam had disappeared. Her first reaction was painful—a squeeze of disappointment so hard that she felt her heart was being slowly squished by the left-front tire of a twelve-ton semi.

  Then she wondered if he might just be in the bathroom or something. Don't be hasty, she told herself. But she heard nothing. No water running. No sound of things bumping.

  Nothing.

  And come to think of it, if he was still here, where were his clothes? She turned over, saw piles of dogs, her underwear, a bra on the chair, her boots by the door, but nothing that belonged to Tam. He was gone, all right.

  Her stomach rolled. Fooled again.

  Damn it.

  Then nature insisted she couldn't lie there whimpering about a disappearing man, and she jumped up, naked, and dashed for the bathroom. Sleepily she relieved herself and tried not to think about Tam or being naked or—

  A piece of paper was stuck to the mirror.

  Sorry to run, Desi, but I thought it was better to get out in case more reporters might be poking around. You were sleeping so deeply, I thought you deserved the rest. Call me when you get up.

  Love, Tam.

  In the tiny room, holding the piece of paper in her hand, Desi thought of her strong emotions upon waking. She thought of the connection she'd felt to Tam last night, that sensation of light flooding her body and mind and soul—

  And shuddered. Too much, too soon. She needed to steer clear of Tamati Neville. Way clear.

  Bending into the sink, she washed her face with very cold water, letting it clear the lingering heat, the lingering wish she felt for him. Raising her head, water dripping silver from her chin, she looked at herself hard in the mirror. "Remember how it felt at the end," she said. "Don't go there again."

  Today, she resolved, she would put her attention on work. Work and the wolves and finding out what the hell was going on with the investigation of Claude's murder and who was behind the vandalism and the attack on Alex. Plenty to keep her occupied, and her thoughts away from memories of a highly erotic evening.

  Filling the sink with warm water, she resolved to compartmentalize her thoughts. She was good at that.

  On a Monday morning, there would be more than enough work for her to do at the clinic. After a simple breakfast of cereal and coffee and banana, she rumbled down the hill in her big truck bathed in the brilliance of morning. There was something in the slant of light as she came into town—was it spring? There were still piles and piles of snow. They would still have two solid months of skiing traffic before the slopes closed and the trails opened.

  But there, angling through a stand of pines in the park at the center of town, was the first long fingers of spring sunshine. It was more gold than winter sunlight, heartier. It gave her a thread of hope, which was quickly doused as she drove into the lot in front of the clinic.

  A handful of cars were parked there—the receptionist's blue Bronco, crusted with the red mud that lined the road to her house; a white pickup truck that had a camper shell on the back; two other, smaller vehicles, all local by their plates.

  And one gleaming black monster of an SUV with Denver plates. A news crew was set up, filming the circling marchers Alice Turner had assembled, as if on cue. Desi let go of a little roar of frustration as she pulled into the lot and sat with her hands on the wheel for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action.

  Maybe it was the relaxation lent her nerves by a long, healthy bout of sex last night—never to be discounted as stress relief—or the simple, pathetic look of the four marching women carrying their pitiable signs, but for the first time what Desi felt was not anger but exasperation, and maybe some pity. What did they lack in their lives that they could make a cause of Claude Tsosie?

  And yet there were things that Desi needed to be careful of. Despite the absurdity of the situation, she was under investigation for murder, and the case, though circumstantial, was not exactly smoke and mirrors. It would be best for her to avoid reporters.

  The newscaster, this one a man in a white sheepskin coat and blue ski hat and dark glasses, spoke to Alice Turner while the other women marched around and around, poking their hand-lettered signs in the air.

  She took a breath and turned off the car. When the news crew spotted her and came running over, she held up a hand. "I don't want to talk to you," she said, but over their shoulders, she pointed at Alice with a fierce look that said, Get off my property.

  Alice tossed a smug look her way, but she shuffled her minions off the property and they started chanting again.

  The reporter, a fit, good-looking man, said, "Don't you want to tell your story, Desi?"

  She looked at him. "No. I have work to do. Please don't harass my patients."

  As she turned to go inside, the man said, "What do you know about the geothermal pool beneath your land?"

  Desi almost paused, her foot in the air, and turned to ask what he was talking about. But that would be exactly the shot he wanted. With an effort she continued walking, ignoring the question, and hoped the little hitch in her step wouldn't show.

  Inside, however, she said to her receptionist, "I need to talk to my sister as soon as possible." She stripped off her coat and hung it in the closet and took out a white vet's coat. "And if you have some time this morning, will you see what you can find on the Internet about geothermal pools or heating—anything like that?"

  "You got it, boss." Sasha, a buxom girl with wide blue eyes, handed her a stack of pink papers, an apologetic expression on her face. "Phone messages for you."

  Desi sighed. When would this whole nightmare end?

  And what exactly had she ever done to deserve it? Headed to the examining room, she flipped through the messages from strangers and friends, most of them commenting on the news stories that must have aired last night on the ten-o'clock news. One was from her sister, Miranda, and it said only, "Call me. Urgent information for you."

  It was only then that Desi realized she'd never turned her phone back on after last night. She pulled it out of her bag, pressed the button to power it up, and waited with the phone in her hand while it warmed up. For a moment she wondered if she should go ahead and give Tam a call, let him know she—

  What? Enjoyed herself? "Liked" him? What would she say? It was weird that he'd left without saying goodbye. Weird to have to make the next move.

  Still, she very nearly punched in the numbers, and then poked the number for voice mail instead. Maybe he had called her.

  There was only one message, from Miranda. "Thought you should know Claude's paintings have quadrupled in price in two days, sister dear. You're sitting on a small fortune."

  She hung up, thinking about the message that wasn't there from Tam, and his big, toothy smile with the dimple that enlivened his left cheek and that small patch of hair beneath his lip. Did she want to do this? Go through all the courtship rituals, the ups and downs, the excitement and devastation, the hope and the pain? Did she really want to have to decide if it was his turn to call or hers?

  Maybe not.

  So think about something else.

  Through the sunny window, Desi could see the slowly circling protestors, Alice at the helm, as always. What if Alice had killed Claude? She owned more of his paintings than anyone else—except Desi. With him dead, Alice would not only have the satisfaction of getting her revenge, but his mediocre paintings would be worth a lot more.

  Alice. Interesting possibility.

  Except—Desi sighed—that didn't explain the harassment and ongoing vandalism. Maybe the two events were not connected. Maybe Claude had been killed for one reason and Desi was being targeted by an entirely different entity?

  How could she find out?

  One thing she did know—nothing in her life would be all right until she knew who killed Claude. She couldn't have a relationship. She couldn't move forward with her plans for the wolf center and education pro
grams to help serve the wild wolves coming into Colorado. She couldn't heal, really, until the whole thing was resolved.

  One way or another, she was determined to figure it out.

  * * *

  Chapter 11

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  After Tam left Desi sleeping, he drove down the mountain to his apartment, a collection of Victorian rooms above the Black Crown. It had been a rundown apartment when he first took over the building, but over two years time, Tam had gradually transformed it into a wide-open set of rooms with brilliant views of the mountains through the side-by-side sets of double-hung windows all the way around.

  He showered the night from his body, thinking that would be that and he'd get on with his day. Below, he heard the first clanging of pans from the kitchen in the pub, and he stood awhile longer, letting hot, hot water beat down on his shoulders, his head, his body.

  Desi.

  No, she would forever be Desdemona in his mind now. Desi was much too short and simple a name to capture the complex lusciousness that was embodied by the woman.

  Embodied. The word gave him sizzling visions of the night before. Her white throat, arching in the orange wash of light from the fire, the curve of her shoulders, the expression of rapture he'd glimpsed in an unguarded moment.

  As the silver, hot water ran over his body, he fancied he could feel a ghostly imprint of her fingers running down his spine, clutching his buttocks— He started to get hard. Again. After the energy expended last night, he was amazed. How could there be anything left?

  And yet, even as he climbed out of the shower and rubbed himself dry on a thick towel his sister had sent him for his birthday, he felt a lingering sense of arousal, like cobwebs over his senses.

  As he fried an egg for breakfast and brewed a pot of his nefariously strong coffee, he wished Roger were alive. Roger, who always seemed to have good insight into the hearts of men—and women. Roger, who would have at least been there to listen, so Tam could sort it out himself.

  Carrying his meal to the table in front of the long, high windows, Tam was acutely aware of missing his friend. They'd met at a training course and immediately fell in synch—the same jokes, the same slightly sick sense of humor. As he looked onto the craggy, snowy peaks of the San Juans, Tam mentally offered a conversation.