“We just sat down and planned what we’d like to have happen,” Minnie said, “and we put a dollar in the pot for each happening. You know”—she blushed—“like moonlight swims, holding hands, kisses. Luther thought you’d kiss her at the VFW hall. Claims it’s darker. Old fool. Wishful thinking is what I call it. Got it in his head that he’s going to get enough better to go back to that VFW hall one more time.”

  “Well, knowing Luther,” Kaylyn said positively, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  Minnie suddenly dropped her snow cone and looked at it in disgust as it melted in the warm sun. “These damned old dried-up bony sticks. Think I’ll just have them all cut off and get me some of them artificial ones. Then I could go to a dance too.”

  “Now, Minnie.” Kaylyn dropped to her knees beside the frail old woman. “You know you’re making great progress. A month ago you couldn’t even lift that snow cone with either hand.”

  “That’s right,” Sandi said as she joined them.

  “Hi, Sandi,” Kaylyn said. “Where’s Mac?”

  “He’s getting ready for the tug-of-war. He sent me to find out if King wanted to be on the team.”

  “Only if they let Luther be the anchor,” King said with a wink.

  “Luther?” Minnie chortled. “What good would he be? He’d get pulled straight into that mud hole, the old fool.”

  “Shame on you, Minnie,” Sandi said. “Look at Luther there. His arthritis was so bad, he couldn’t even sit up straight when he got here. Now he’s regained the use of both hands, and soon he’s going to be bopping around this place on a walker.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Minnie said. “Can’t keep him in his room now. He’ll get himself thrown out of the home if he gets any friskier.”

  Kaylyn laughed as she pushed Minnie toward the stands. “Why Luther, what have you been up to that we don’t know about?”

  “A better question, Katie my love,” he said, “is what have you been up to over at the springs?” He dropped his voice and added in a conspiratorial whisper that everybody heard, “You know, by yourself, with him. I mean … just how well are you getting to know the King here?”

  “Bite your tongue, Luther Peavey. I’m just over there protesting a golf course. What kind of hanky-panky are you suggesting?”

  “You might call it hanky-panky, but I call it”—he clutched at his heart and took a dramatic deep breath—“fooling around.”

  “Maybe we’d better station a chaperon at the nursing home instead of a night nurse, Sandi. I don’t know whether or not we can trust these two to behave.”

  “You’d better not,” Luther said. “A few more trips to take the waters and all of you might learn a thing or two.”

  “Shut up, you old fool,” Minnie said. “Don’t listen to him, Katie. He’s just teasing you. Now, about you and that young man. Well, that’s a different thing entirely. Has he held your hand yet?” Minnie asked shyly.

  Kaylyn knew she was blushing. Had he held her hand yet? Yes, he had. In fact, there was hardly a part of her that he hadn’t held. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you, Minnie. You and Luther are too nosy.”

  “Darn!” Minnie said.

  “We’re not nosy, personally,” Luther said. “We’re taking notes for the time when Miss Minnie and I can go dancing and stay out late.”

  Luther’s voice was teasing, but Kaylyn could hear the wistfulness there too. They’d bathed in the springs for an hour that morning. On such days Kaylyn could see a difference in Minnie’s grasp. If only they could use the springs on a regular basis, she thought. With a good therapy program and the springs, it was possible that Minnie could regain the use of her left leg and arm. She’d already made remarkable progress.

  “You’re both going to the dance, Luther,” she said. “Everybody who’s ambulatory can go. I’ve arranged special late-night passes for the dance and the fireworks.”

  They walked down toward the activities area, where Mac joined them. In his short silk running shorts, heavy lumberjack boots, and green socks with a green bandana tied around his forehead, he looked like a refugee from a California beach.

  “Are you going to compete, King? I’ve got a red bandana for you.”

  “Nope, I’m saving myself for the three-legged race. Kaylyn and I have some serious hopping to do.”

  They all stayed to watch the tug-of-war. Mac took the forward position on the rope for his team and became the first to tumble into the gooey mud as his side went down to defeat. By the time the children had competed in the tug-of-war and the three-legged race, Mac had found clean clothes and sat in the stands to watch King and Kaylyn compete.

  Kaylyn tried to hang back. “Are you sure you want to do this, King? We haven’t even practiced, and I happen to know that last year’s winners have been working out for the past few days.”

  King slid his arm around her waist and pulled them tightly together. “We don’t need practice, darlin’, we’re a natural. You just put your side curves in my side hollows and squeeze up tight. We start off with the outside leg and fly like a butterfly.”

  The only butterfly Kaylyn could account for was the one hovering just beneath her skin, where she was fitting snugly in King’s hollows. How had she ever thought that this kind of race was a laughing matter?

  They were making good time halfway into the race when King lurched awkwardly and they hopped madly off-course toward a surrounding patch of pines. Trying desperately to regain his balance, King caught his foot in a tree root, and they both began to roll downhill through the underbrush. In a tangle of arms and legs, they came to a stop in a shallow ravine. The bindings on their legs had come untied. King was flat on his back beneath the thick limbs of a cedar tree, and Kaylyn was lying on top of him.

  “King! King, open your eyes. Are you hurt?”

  His arms closed around her and he groaned, flexing his body in what felt suspiciously like a caress. “I hurt bad, Kay, darlin’. I need intensive care, beginning with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

  Now that the anxiety over his being hurt left her mind, she felt a tingle of response sweep over her. “Oh, King,” she said hoarsely, giving in to the need to touch him. She nuzzled her cheek against his and hid her face in his neck, feeling the pounding of his pulse in his veins. “You did that on purpose.”

  “Maybe.” His hands slid down her lower back and cupped her bottom. He pressed her tightly against him in a rhythmic motion that moved her up and down his body. “Ah, Kay. You’re so beautiful. You belong here, in the woods, with wildflowers in your hair. The animals will all come to bring you gifts and you’ll be their queen.”

  “The queen and her king.” She drew back, resting her weight fully on him, feeling the sweet pain of her own body’s need. Her eyes were half closed, her lips parted, her breath coming in short, hot pants. “We lost the race,” she whispered. “What will Minnie and Luther think about our disappearance?”

  “I don’t know about Minnie,” King mumbled, “but I’ll bet Luther will understand. Oh, lady.” He rubbed against her. “I don’t suppose we could spend the rest of the day right here, could we?”

  He pulled the top of her sundress down, freeing one breast, then moved her body up along his so his lips could find her nipple.

  “What if somebody comes by?” Her voice was thick and groggy. She could hear the obvious desire in every word. “Oh, King.”

  He planted little kisses around her golden brown breast, and up her neck, and reclaimed her lips with an unmistakable urgency. One hand cupped her breast while the other hand gathered up her skirt, his fingers inching beneath it to her bare skin.

  Kaylyn was caught up in a torrent of sensation she couldn’t hold back. She was pressing herself intimately against him, returning his kisses with rough, urgent ones of her own as her body cried out for the touch of his naked skin against hers.

  “Hey, King! Kaylyn, where are you?”

  The sound of their names being called finally sank in, and she pulled away from King, forcing back the flood of desire in which she had been swept up.

  “Someone is coming, King.”

  “Damn!” He touched her bare breast once more, then reluctantly recovered it. He rolled her away and sat up. “Whee.” He took a deep breath. “I hope that’s Mac. I don’t think either one of us is in any shape to face someone we don’t know.” He stood up and openly adjusted his jeans, then held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. “You’d better walk in front of me—and walk very slow.”

  Her already flushed face turned even redder. “King, I … I …”

  “King, where are you? It’s me, Mac, your friendly foreman.” Mac spotted King and Kaylyn and came to an abrupt stop, a smile hovering at the corners of his lips.

  “You mean, my former foreman,” King said. “You’re fired!”

  “Then call me the advance scout. If we don’t get you back in sight pronto, half these people are going to make up a search party to find you.”

  They had lost the race, but the applause they received from the onlookers was greater than that received by the winners. King had the presence of mind to rub his head, explaining that their fall had temporarily rendered him unconscious. The only dissenting remark came from Luther Peavey, who rolled his eyes and gave a dramatic “Hmph!”

  Six

  The rest of the day passed in a whirl. Kaylyn no longer tried to resist King’s attention. Inviting him to the celebration had been based on two expectations: one, that he’d meet the residents and see how important the springs were to their well-being; and two, that the residents would see him for the commercial entrepreneur he was.

  He met the residents, maybe not all of the twelve hundred and fifty official residents of Pretty Springs, but many of them, and he fit right in. They didn’t see him as a greedy entrepreneur. And the nursing-home residents liked him almost as much as she did. Nothing had worked out as she’d planned.

  Holding hands, they listened to the speeches and ate hot dogs and sweet red watermelon, the juice of which ran down King’s chin. They danced for hours in the moonlight on the street, made slick by a generous application of cornmeal. By the time they found a spot on the grass to watch the fireworks, Kaylyn had given up all pretense at being proper. She sat between his legs with her back against his chest, clasping the arms folded beneath her breasts.

  On signal from the fire chief, the city engineer doused the streetlights on the square, and the night went black. When the first spray of color hit the sky, Kaylyn caught her breath and let out a little gasp of pleasure.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Not as beautiful as you,” King whispered, nuzzling her ear in the darkness.

  “Oh, King, stop it. After today it won’t be just the nursing-home residents who will be planning our wedding.…” Her voice trailed off. “I mean … well, you know how small towns are. They’ll expect you to—”

  Another burst of color mushroomed in the sky. “To what? Make an honest woman out of you?” He waited for the light to die down so that he could slip his fingers beneath her arm, capture her breast, and expose it for a quick kiss before the next flash of light.

  “Well, no, not immediately,” she said. “But you’ve staked your claim, and in Pretty Springs that normally means that we would get married.” She adjusted the top of her sundress and tried to find a position that didn’t allow him such freedom. It didn’t work. The finding of the position only made her more aware of the body pressed intimately against her.

  “And you don’t think that I’m the marrying kind, do you?” he asked.

  “Obviously not. After all, you’re what—thirty-four, thirty-five? And you’ve managed to …” She sat up straight and looked back at the man who was melting her body into a mass of churning lava. “You’re not married, are you?”

  He turned her back into the circle of his arms. “I’m thirty-four and available, very available. I’m what Luther calls ripe for the picking—just like you.”

  She snuggled against him, unable to control her need to be close to the man. “What did he mean, just like me?”

  “Luther has a theory. He thinks you need a man to shower your attention on. He says that you’ve about run out of causes to crusade for in Pretty Springs. The geriatric set is afraid you’ll get bored and move on. They’re trying to find you a man so that you’ll be satisfied to stay here with them.”

  “And what makes them think you’d be a prime candidate?”

  “Because we’re good together, Kaylyn Smith. You know it and I know it. We just haven’t proved it yet.”

  Around them the oohs and ahhhs signaled the grand finale of the display, and slivers of brilliant-colored fire danced across the sky. Afterward the watchers began a weary trek back to their cars.

  He was right, Kaylyn thought as they walked along with the others. He knew it and she knew it. All the way back to his car, her body clamored for proof. She didn’t know what to say. His final statement had gone unanswered.

  He helped her inside the car and gave her one quick kiss before he hurried to the driver’s side and started the engine. Because he’d parked near the exit, they had left long before the rest of the crowd.

  “It’s okay, darlin’. I know that this is new to you. Minnie had a few instructions for me too. I’m to go slow and not scare you to death. You’re inexperienced. Even if you look like Helen of Troy and Cleopatra all rolled up into one, you’re not. I’m to court you slowly. But I think I should tell you, the jackpot in the pool is the wedding. It pays twenty-five bucks.”

  “Wedding?” King was out of his mind, she thought. The fall during the three-legged race had scrambled his brains. He was talking about weddings as if he might even be half serious.

  “Yes,” he went on calmly, heading the car toward the springs. “The date is set for Christmas, in the chapel at the Pretty Springs Nursing Home. New Year’s Eve is second choice, but the money isn’t as good.”

  “How’d they get so much money in the pool?”

  “Well, I have to admit that I put in a few bucks myself.”

  “Where are you going, King?”

  “I’m taking you home, darlin’.”

  “I—I had intended to stay in my trailer tonight.”

  “Not a chance, Kaylyn Smith. I want you in my arms, and I don’t want to see windows filled with observers keeping score.”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, King.”

  “I’ve already told you that I don’t have sleeping in mind.”

  He drove through the construction site entrance, passed the Lizard, and parked near the blue-and-white trailer. He walked slowly around the car, opened Kaylyn’s door, and caught her hand. “Come inside with me, Kaylyn. Let me make love to you. Please? Forget about Luther and Minnie’s expectations. I’ve never thought about getting married. I’ve never had much faith in the institution. All I know is that I want you, and for me this is a new kind of wanting.”

  Kaylyn hesitated. She understood what he was saying. She understood too well. When he brought her hand to his mouth and planted a kiss on the delicate skin of her wrist, she felt herself weaken. What was the point of pretending? She wanted him too. Every time she was around him she became a tongue-tied idiot with a body that seemed to be circulating hot water. And when he kissed her, she turned into one of those fireworks they’d just watched that zinged off into space and shattered into a million pieces.

  “This is hard for me to say, King. Luther is right. I am inexperienced with men. I’ve never slept with a man before. I don’t know how to … oh, King! I’m afraid.”

  “I’m afraid, too, darlin’, afraid that I won’t please you. It’s never mattered before. It matters now.”

  Suddenly she was in his arms and they were kissing each other. The night turned into a beautiful, shimmering swirl of emotions that fueled the fire between them. Then they were inside King’s trailer, touching, kissing. Her soft skin came against his hair-roughened body, and the explosion of sensation was as stupendous as the grand finale, except they weren’t spectators in this explosion. They were the nucleus.

  Kaylyn was lying on King’s bed, and she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. She shivered with intense pleasure as King held her against him, finding for the first time just how well men and women were designed to fit together. His hands skimmed her body, touching, memorizing, pressing. His lips followed as if they, too, needed to inventory her for some memory bank that cataloged every millimeter.

  At first timidly, then more boldly, she followed his example. She didn’t know what was expected of her. Caught up in the maelstrom of passion, she allowed herself to go where her emotions led her. Her hands rimmed his tiny nipples, almost hidden by thick, soft chest hair. She felt them harden and quiver beneath her touch.

  Downward her fingers moved. She was lying half beneath King. One of his legs was thrown across her lower body and pressed intimately between her legs. His lips were assaulting her mouth, and his tongue was exciting her with its intrusion. The involuntary flexing of the muscles in his stomach drew her hand on. Down into the heavier, wiry thatch of hair that surrounded …

  “My goodness! King!”

  He gasped. “Dammit, woman, don’t do that, or I won’t be any good to you.” But he’d already begun to move involuntarily against the hand exploring him with such maddening timidity.

  “You won’t?” With one fingertip she skimmed the length of him.

  “If you’re going to touch me, woman, then touch me! Don’t make little forays across my body and then retreat. You’re driving me to the brink of …”

  “What exactly am I doing?”

  “You can’t be that innocent.” He gasped, jerking her hand away before she’d pushed him too far.

  Kaylyn became very still. She’d offended him but didn’t know why. He’d been touching her everywhere. And she hadn’t known that her actions would affect him so violently. He was still lying over her, breathing raggedly.

  “I’m sorry,” she managed to say huskily.

 

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