In Roared Flint

She scrambled up from the deep chair, and he shoved her back down. She popped up; he shoved down.

“Dammit, Julie! Can’t you just give me thirty seconds?” He pushed her into the recliner, then quickly lifted one heavy chair leg, crammed the tail of her dress under it and dropped the weight of the chair down on the yards of peach silk.

When she tried to get up, her caught dress held her down. She yanked and yanked, but she was pulling against her own weight, and she couldn’t get enough leverage to move and lift the chair. Struggling, she got halfway up into an awkward, twisted position, then lost her balance and fell sprawling into the chair. Somehow, in the bucking and wiggling and tugging, the recliner popped open into its most extreme position. A loud ripppp. Her head jerked back; her feet flew up; her arms and elbows went every which way.

She batted the tattered gown from her face and fought with the recliner—which had transformed into an undulating octopus—to get to her feet. One ragged part of the hem still held her prisoner. Feeling as helpless as a staked goat, she kept struggling until she saw Flint enter with a black designer suitcase. She lay back, exhausted.

“I brought something for you.” He opened the suitcase and dumped its contents into her lap.

She stilled. Her eyes widened.

Money. Banded stacks of bills. Dozens of stacks. Scores of stacks.

When she saw that most of the packets were in denominations of fifty and one hundred dollars, her eyes widened even further and she sucked in a deep gasp. “What is this?”

“A million dollars. It’s yours.”

“Mine?”

“Yep. I told you when I left that I would bring you back a million dollars.”

“But you were teasing and that was six years ago.”

“It took me a little longer than I expected.”

“It’s been six years, Flint. Six years without a word from you. Was I supposed to sit around and wait after you jilted me on our wedding day?”

“I didn’t jilt you, sweetheart. I explained that I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, one that might let me offer you a decent living instead of one with a river rat. I couldn’t marry you and take you home to that shack my mother died in. I only asked you to wait, to give me a little time.”

“A little time?” she shrieked, bounding to her feet amid ripping and rending noises. Fists on her hips, she glared up at him. “You expected me to wait for six years without a word from you? Without a phone call? Without a letter? Without a simple postcard?”

“I did try to call you, and I did write to you. And I damned well expected you to wait more than six weeks to marry another man! Was he rich?”

“No, Charles wasn’t rich, but he…he was there when I needed him. He wasn’t off gallivanting all over the country chasing a dream and trying to make his fortune. Why didn’t you take me with you, Flint? Why didn’t you take me with you?”

She watched pain and regret fill his black eyes. He reached to coil a lock of her hair around his finger. “I wish I had,” he murmured. “I wish to hell I had.”

The wrenching tone of his voice almost melted the steel armor protecting her heart, but she stiffened her resolve. “But you didn’t. You made your choice and left me behind. Now it’s too late.”

“Is it, Julie? Is it too late for us?” He scooped up several stacks of bills, held them out to her and smiled that smile that had always turned her into mush. “You can have anything your heart desires. I’ve brought you a treasure.”

Fury flew over her. She slapped the cash from his hand. “Keep your money! I never wanted money. I only wanted you.” Despite her best efforts, tears ran down her cheeks.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, gathering her into his arms, “I’m yours.”

Before she could wiggle free, his mouth slanted over hers. Sensual, warm, familiar.

She melted under his sensuous spell. His lips evoked an avalanche of delicious memories that smothered her protests and plunged her into a sea of pure sensualism. His tongue branded her as his, only his.

Holding her close, he dropped kisses over her face, trailed his tongue along her jaw, nibbled on her earlobe. He cupped her buttocks, drew her against his hardness and groaned. “God, how I want you, darlin’. I’ve ached for you for six long years.” His mouth devoured hers.

Reality crept through the cracks of her consciousness and dashed her with cold water. She tensed and tore her lips away. “What are you doing?”

“Gettin’ me some sweet, sweet sugar,” he murmured, reaching for her lips again.

“No!”

“No?”

“You heard me. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I’m engaged to another man. I should be married and at my wedding reception right this minute. You cannot kiss me. No.”

“Babe, I wasn’t the only one doing the kissing. You were going after it pretty good yourself.”

“Don’t call me babe. You know very well I’ve always hated being called babe.”

“Sorry, darlin’.”

“And don’t call me darlin’, either. I’m not your darlin’. I’m not your anything. I am about to become Mrs. Robert Allen Newly.”

“Newly? Julie Newly?” A snort of laughter exploded from him.

She bopped him on the shoulder with her fist. “Don’t you dare laugh. Yes, I’ll be Julie Newly, and it’s not funny. It has a lovely lilt. And if you know what’s good for you, Flint Durham, you’ll take me back to Travis Creek right this minute.”

“Not until we talk.”

“Why have you suddenly become so enamored with talking? Before you left here, all you did was grunt occasionally. You were certainly never a verbal communicator.”

He shot her a salacious grin. “I was always better at the nonverbal stuff. You never complained about that.”

Julie felt her cheeks heat. “I’ve matured.”

“So have I. That’s why I want to talk. We have a lot of things to straighten out.”

Julie couldn’t miss the stubborn set of his jaw. She knew from past experience that trying to convince him otherwise would be like trying to argue with a fence post. She would give him ten minutes, listen to what he had to say, then demand to be returned to her parents’ house.

Still in a huff, she strode to a straight chair, plopped down and said, “Start talking.”

Three

Flint dragged another straight chair to face Julie and straddled it backward. He crossed his arms over the top slat, rested his chin against them and stared at her, absorbing her image. How often he’d dreamed of seeing her again, ached for her. Now he felt like a desert-parched man at a crystal-clear oasis. He slaked his thirst on the loveliness of her face, a face that had first captivated him fifteen years before and had profoundly altered his life. Time had been gracious to her, drawn her beauty more keenly, transformed her from a lovely girl to an exquisite woman.

“You’re more beautiful than ever,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

“Thank you,” she said, her nose going up and her blue eyes turning frosty, “but you have exactly ten minutes to have your say. I would suggest that you use your time on topics more important than my looks.”

He grinned at her imperious tone. “Right. Where shall I begin?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t know. You’re the one who skipped town on our wedding day.”

“Darlin’, I didn’t skip town. I explained that I wasn’t ready to get married. All I had to my name was two hundred dollars in the bank, a shack on the water and a used Harley. I was earning barely enough as a fishing guide to support myself. I couldn’t give you the things I wanted you to have or provide a decent place for you to live.”

“You’d been telling me the same tale for two years. I was sick of waiting. I told you dozens of times that money wasn’t that important to me. Besides, I had my teaching job. We could have gotten by just fine.”

“But I didn’t want to just get by. I wanted—” He scraped the red kerchief from his head, tossed it aside and raked his fingers through his hair. God, how to say this? “I wanted to give you fine things and a big beautiful house. But more than that, I wanted to be somebody, somebody that your family wouldn’t look down their noses at. Somebody you could be proud to marry in front of the whole damned town instead of having to sneak off and find a justice of the peace. That’s why, even though it took me eight years to do it, I got my college degree. I had a burning desire and a crazy idea that I could be a writer.”

Her brows went up and her eyes grew wide. “A writer? You?”

“Yep.” He rested his chin on his arms again. “I’ve always had a powerful urge to write. In fact, I used to stay up half the night, pounding away on an old typewriter I scrounged up. I fancied myself as the next Ernest Hemingway.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why in the world didn’t you tell me?”

“Pride, I guess. Nobody knew except Miss Fuller, my English teacher in high school, and Dr. Stephenson, my creative writing teacher at Lamar.”

Her eyes turned sad. “I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me something so important to you.”

“I’m sorry. I should have, but I was waiting until I sold something. All I’d done was collect enough rejection letters to paper the whole courthouse. What kind of a profession was writing for somebody like me—the town bad boy, that old drunk Wilber Durham’s kid? Hell, maybe I was deluding myself in thinking that I could be a writer. I was scared to death that you would laugh at me.”

“Gee, thanks! It’s nice to know that you thought I was so shallow and insensitive. No wonder you jilted me!” She sprang to her feet. “This has gone far enough. Take me home this minute.”

“Not until I’ve had my say. Remember, I have the keys.”

She rolled her eyes upward and made exasperated growling sounds between her clenched teeth. She marched around in quick circles, pulling at her hair, most of which had come loose from its pins and hung in charming dishevelment. He knew that she was furious and getting madder by the minute, but he was desperate. No way in hell was he going to let her get away until he made her understand that the two of them were meant for each other.

“You have to sleep sometime,” she said, smirking.

“Julie, honey, will you listen to me? I’m trying to explain. I didn’t jilt you. I asked you to wait for another year.”

“And after that it would have been another year…and another.”

“I promised you that a year was all I was asking.”

“You promised me that you would write to me, too, but you didn’t.”

“I did write to you. I wrote you several letters.”

“Baloney! I never got them.”

He frowned. “You didn’t send them back to me with the newspaper clipping from your wedding?”

She looked truly stunned. “Certainly not.”

“Then who did?”

“I don’t know.” Julie dropped to the chair, hung her head and was silent for several seconds. “My mother,” she whispered. “It could only have been my mother.” She looked up, a pained expression on her face. “Dear Lord, how could she have done such a thing when she knew—” She clamped her mouth shut and glanced down at her fingers.

“When she knew what?”

Tears trickled down Julie’s cheeks. “When she knew how…how much I loved you, how much I needed you.”

Flint’s heart nearly choked him. “Oh, darlin’.” He pulled her up from her chair and into his arms. “I love you, too. And I need you. I hurt from needing you.” He started to kiss her, but she started hissing and spitting like a wildcat. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” she shrieked. “‘What’s wrong?‘ he asks. You waltz off to become Ernest Hemingway, then waltz back in six years later—on my wedding day, I might add—and expect me to take up where we left off? Well, think again, bub. And don’t call me babe.”

“But I explained, or at least part of it. If you had read my letters—”

“But I didn’t read them.”

He raked his hands through his hair again. “You would have if it hadn’t been for that bitch of a mother of yours.”

“Don’t call my mother names!” she yelled.

“She’s called me worse.”

Julie jacked up her chin and glared lightning bolts. “She has not. She never even says ‘darn.’ But I have. I’ve called you every name in the book for leaving me. Would you like to hear some of them?” She let loose with a string of invectives that turned his ears red.

“Julie! I don’t like to hear you talk like that.”

She cocked one eyebrow. “Well, la-de-dah. Isn’t that just too bad? If my choice of words offends you so badly, you can just take me home. Maybe I can still salvage my wedding.”

“No chance. Cuss until you’re blue in the face, but you’re staying here until I make you understand that there will never be anybody else for you except me.”

“You’re going to have a long wait.” She turned her back and crossed her arms.

“Honey, will you let me explain why I had to leave Travis Creek in such a hurry?”

“I’m not talking. I’m not listening.” She covered her ears and started singing “Dixie” again.

“Dammit, Julie,” he yelled. “I had received a letter the day before that knocked me for a loop. I was offered a full scholarship—”

“Look away…look awaaaaaay Dixieland,” she caterwauled.

Exasperated, he retreated to the couch and sat down. He plunked his booted feet on the pine coffee table, picked up a magazine and began leafing through the pages. He couldn’t have read it if he’d wanted to, not with all that howling and screeching going on. Julie was gorgeous; she had a well-modulated speaking voice that was sexy as hell; and he loved the woman with all his heart and soul—but the bare-faced truth was that she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. Never could sing worth a damn. Six years hadn’t changed that, either.

A few minutes later, she ran down. After an interval of blessed quiet, she said, “Flint, will you please take me home now?”

“Nope.”

She sighed theatrically. “Well, if you won’t take me home, at least let me go to the bathroom.”

“Okay.” He stood. “I’ll take you.”

“Home?”

“No. To the bathroom.”

“I can go by myself. Where is it?”

“Outside.”

Julie wrinkled her nose at the accommodations. At least it wasn’t a little house down a path. The small room, which seemed to have been added as an afterthought to one end of the long back porch, had a shower, a toilet, a sink and…a window without bars.

But when she tried pulling it up she almost got a hernia. Examining it closely, she saw that the blasted thing was nailed shut. Oh, what she wouldn’t give for a claw hammer or a pair of pliers.

Flint banged on the door. “Are you okay in there?”

Her keeper. She couldn’t even go to the bathroom without him standing outside waiting for her. Some way, somehow, she had to escape from this place.

He banged again. “Julie, are you okay?”

Frustrated and furious, she flung open the door. “Can’t I even use the ladies’ room in peace?”

“Sorry.” If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought that he looked contrite.

Hiking up the tail of her torn wedding dress, she brushed past him, then stopped to scout the area, trying to figure out where she was. The cabin was in a heavily wooded tract, built partly on land and partly on beams over the edge of the bank. A pier extended out from the porch steps, but she didn’t see a boat anywhere. All she saw was woods and lake—miles and miles of woods and lake. But there had to be a boat around somewhere.

Boats and water had always made her nervous, but because of the twins, she’d worked hard at overcoming her fears. She still wasn’t thrilled about getting in a boat, but she could manage if it meant freedom.

Julie walked to the porch railing and nonchalantly glanced down at the water lapping at the beams. A red bass boat rode in a slip beneath the porch.

“Where are we?” she asked casually.

“At a friend’s place on Lake Rayburn.”

She shot him an exasperated glare. “I figured as much. But where exactly?”

He grinned. “Uh-uh. I’m not biting that line.” He turned her to him. “Julie, don’t even think about trying to sneak out and take off. Riding the Harley is out, and I know how you feel about boats and water, and you can’t make it out on foot. If you tried, you’d only get lost and endanger yourself. We’re a long way from anywhere.” He stuck his fingers in his back pockets and sniffed the air. “Besides it’s going to rain before long.”

She glanced at the sky over the water. The sun was heading down—which at least gave her a directional clue—and a few clouds streaked its face, but the weather was clear as a bell. Before she could open her mouth to refute his claim, the wind kicked up a chill breeze, and she heard the rumble of distant thunder. Or was that her stomach? Clamping her hand on her tummy, she asked haughtily, “Are you going to starve me, too?”

He chuckled. “Hadn’t planned to. Let’s see what we can rustle up in the kitchen.” He gestured for her to precede him into the cabin.

“You go ahead. I think I’ll stay out here for a while.”

He lifted one black eyebrow in a who-do-you-thinkyou’re-kidding expression.

“Oh, all right!” She stomped indignantly inside—or as indignant a stomp as she could manage in her stocking feet.

If she was going to remain Flint’s prisoner, bedamned if she was going to cook, and she told him so. While he fixed dinner, she tossed the trailing tail of her ragged dress over her arm and wandered around the cabin, looking for a way to escape. She checked every window and rattled every door. She surreptitiously scavenged through cupboards and drawers, trying to find something, anything, that might help her get away. Mostly she found fishing stuff: spools and spools of line, dozens of lures and other paraphernalia, and—voilà!—needle-nose pliers.

Glancing quickly over her shoulder to see if Flint had spotted her find, she stuffed the pliers down the front of her dress, adjusting them inside her bra so that they wouldn’t make a telltale bulge.

Divine smells coming from the stove set her stomach to rumbling again—not surprising since she’d been too nervous to eat lunch, and breakfast had been a banana. She ignored the temptations Flint was concocting and continued her scrutiny of the cabin. With only two rooms and the kitchen alcove, she soon ran out of places to look. There were only so many spots to examine in such small quarters. Before she was reduced to anxious pacing, she told herself to calm down and think. Make a plan.

Picking up a stray stack of cash, she sat down on the sofa and fanned through the banded bunch of hundred dollar bills. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the money that he’d dumped in her lap earlier. The dozens of packets still littered the recliner and the floor.

Where had so much cash come from? Had he become involved in something sinister? Her mind conjured up all sorts of terrible scenarios. Had Flint gotten mixed up in…in drugs? Panicked, she swallowed. Oh, dear heavenly days, for all she knew, he was a dope fiend or a bank robber. Or maybe—

“Julie!”

She yelped and jumped two feet off the couch. “Don’t creep up on me like that.”

“I didn’t creep. I called you twice. Dinner’s ready.”

“Oh. Uh, uh, I need to wash my hands in the bathroom.”

“Wash them at the kitchen sink.”

She patted her disheveled hair. “Well, I’d also like to straighten up a bit. Do you have a brush?”

“Sure, in the bedroom on the dresser. I’ll pour the wine.”

So much for her idea of working on those window nails in the bathroom. When Flint turned his back, she made a face, then snatched up a stack of bills and hurried to the bedroom. The cash might come in handy. She stuck the packet of money in her garter, the blue one that she should have been tossing to prospective grooms about now. Her family must be wild with distress. She only hoped that they didn’t alarm the children.

When she saw her reflection in the mirror, she didn’t even care that she was a mess. Her lipstick was gone, and her mascara was runny and smeared. The circlet of roses and the attached veil had been blown off in the wild ride. Only one limp rose dangled at her temple. She plucked it from her hair and tossed it aside. After removing the pins, she gave her tangled mop a good brushing, then ripped a strip from her dress and tied the scrap around the hair she gathered at the nape of her neck.

She tried to do something with her mascara, but her efforts only made matters worse. Lips pursed, she marched back into the kitchen area and announced, “Flint, I look like a raccoon. I need to wash my face in the bathroom where I can see what I’m doing.”

He grinned. “Okay. Come on. But hurry up. Our dinner will get cold.”

After he escorted her to the bathroom on the porch, Julie cleaned the mascara streaks in thirty seconds. Leaving the water running, she yanked the pliers from her bosom and went to work on the nails. She had one nail out and another loose when Flint knocked on the door.

“Come on, sugar. Our dinner’s getting cold.”

She muttered a curse. “Just a minute,” she called. She pulled out the second nail and quickly stuck the pliers beneath a plunger in the corner. She turned off the water, turned on a smile and opened the door. “I’m ready.”

Inside, the table was set, a candle was lit and soft music played on a radio. He held her chair as she sat down.

Worry about her predicament should have taken away her appetite. It didn’t. She was famished. And common sense told her that if she was going to escape, she needed to keep up her strength. Besides, the food was delicious. Beyond delicious.

Fish sautéed in mushrooms and herbs, pasta in a delicately seasoned cream sauce, cold asparagus marinated in olive oil and balsamic vinegar with sun-dried tomatoes. And the wine was fabulous.

“Enjoying your dinner?” he asked.

She looked up from shoveling in a mouthful of pasta. He toyed with the stem of his wineglass while he watched her. Amusement played around the corners of his mouth. Embarrassed to have been caught stuffing food in her mouth like a starving refugee, she put down her fork and delicately dabbed her lips with her napkin.

“It’s quite tasty. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“In California.”

“I see.”

“Want to know what I was doing in California?”

“Not particularly.” She chugalugged the rest of her wine. He filled her glass again.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She nodded toward his untouched fork and picked up her own. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’d rather watch you.”

“Well, don’t,” she said, lifting a bite of fish to her mouth. “It makes me nervous.”

“It makes me horny.”

Her fork clattered to her plate. “Damn you, Flint Durham, don’t say things like that to me.”

“Would you want me to lie?” His voice was barely a whisper.

His eyes, smoldering like a banked camp fire, bored into hers. A tendril of raw sensual awareness traveled between them and stroked her skin. Quivering sensation rippled over her. She tried to glance away, but she was helplessly mesmerized by the potent allure of his dark eyes. Black with longing, they seemed to draw her into their depths, mesmerize her with memories of a passionate past.

A low throb began building in her body, quickening her pulse and stealing her breath. Knowing that she was flirting with disaster didn’t stifle the feelings. The forbidden enticement seemed only to fan the flames. The attraction was still there, stronger than ever, as if it had been secretly intensifying beneath the surface for six long years. She struggled, waging an inner battle between desire and dignity.

Abruptly, Julie sprang to her feet. Her chair overturned and crashed to the floor. “Don’t do that!” she shouted.

“Don’t do what, darlin’?”

“Don’t look at me that way.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a lazy smile. “What way is that?”