[7] Sampling

Though the entire evening had been a concentrated exercise in body and voice modulation, the sheer magnitude of her accomplishment—sitting and talking politely, even managing to eat, mere inches from the sole man on earth who turned her mind to mush and irresistibly lured her seditious body like the Pied Piper—didn’t become apparent until Teri was mindlessly zipping northbound along Main Street towards the secluded sanctuary of her RV home.

Once there, all the provoked and pent-up primal brain instincts surged to the forefront, vehemently denying further suppression, even now that the dangerous threat Jim’s mere proximity presented was removed.

“The primal brain controls our innate and spontaneous self-preserving behaviors, which ensures our survival and that of our species,” she remembered with sudden clarity from a college biology lecture. “These are often summarized as the four ‘F’s: feeding, fighting, fleeing… and reproductive activities—you’re all college-aged adults, I doubt I have to mention the last one.”

Leaning against the bathroom door, Teri squeezed her eyes shut tightly, banging the back of her head against it in frustration.

How? she demanded, mentally poking furiously at her violently usurped and baffled neocortex. How is it one man I haven’t seen in a decade—a decade!—can ramp up a ten-alarm frenzy in three of the four of those, scant seconds after he appears!?

With no ready answer forthcoming, she yanked furiously at her work clothes as she undressed, forcibly and irrationally stuffing them into the wicker laundry hamper neatly tucked into a lower cabinet near the bathroom door.

The simple truth was she already knew it had nothing to do with Jim.

Well, she qualified, it had something to do with Jim—all wadded up in a burning hot ember centered between her hips that was pulsing and glowing and threatening to burst into engulfing flames.

Teri paced the length of the RV as Evie watched her, warmhearted brown eyes a small comfort. How could I be so careless? she cursed herself, agonizing a thousand scenarios where Jim learned her truth, hated and rejected her. Or worse, Zoe.

As she marched back and forth, snatching at the rare misplaced object and mindlessly restoring it to its proper place, she ruminated obsessively, uselessly, before she forced herself to lay down on her bed and breathe.

“You couldn’t have seen that coming,” she reassured herself out loud. “You couldn’t have seen any of this coming.  In fact, I’d swear fate is conspiring against you, no matter how meticulous you are.”

“So he knows you’re here?” The hot ball of concentrated sexual arousal lurched low in her belly and Teri flushed, embarrassed by her seditious body’s continuing visceral response to him. “So what? You’re in control of everything—,” an electric tingle zipped out of her core, “—well, almost everything, but never mind! You write it—you write the code. If you can’t decide whether or not he’s in the world of your design, you can at least decide what part he plays in it.”

It took several more minutes of deep breaths to commandeer control, but eventually Teri stood. “Let’s go for a walk.” Returning to the kitchen, she harnessed the Sheltie and opened the door.

It was after dark, and she didn’t want to risk walking along the highway, so Teri let the dog lead her around the resort as her thoughts wandered, eventually slowing and returning to the mundane aspects of her life. I wonder what time it is. She looked down, realizing Evie had no further interest in exploring their environment and was simply standing beside her in the middle of the grassy park.

It doesn’t matter, she thought. He’ll come for you now if you don’t call. Heaving a sigh, Teri headed home, missing the distraction Zoe’s presence provided. Inside the RV, she lay down on her bed in the dark, Evie curling up beside her.

Maybe he’s already in bed, she hoped.

In vain. Jim picked up on the second ring.

“Hi Teri.”

His voice was low and soothing in her ear and Teri closed her eyes, wishing she weren’t so receptive to it.

“I was beginning to think you would stand me up.”

He’d chosen the words deliberately, knowing they’d remind her of their first date—a blind date he’d had a mutual friend arrange. The flashback brought a soft smile to her face.

After an hour waiting for her at the bar, Jim had left the restaurant where they were to meet, stunned to see her leaned against her car in the parking lot. Though he’d seen her, he’d said nothing, just climbed into his car and watched her, as for a solid hour, she’d paced back and forth, getting into and out of her car, talking herself into and out of going inside to meet him.

The lot had cleared when she finally approached the restaurant door in time to see an employee inside turn the neon OPEN sign off.

Her jaw had dropped, aghast. Shocked at her own behavior, she’d returned to her car to find him leaning against it, arms crossed over his broad chest, a smile on his handsome face. He’d said the same words then.

“I was beginning to think you would stand me up.”

Caught in her anxiety and embarrassed he’d seen it, Teri had looked at her feet. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

He’d gotten to his feet and extended his hand. When she placed hers in his, he’d smiled even more. “I’ll never give up on you.”

The silence stretched between them now, tense and waiting.

My Lord, how fate is conspiring against me!

Sitting up, Teri drew a shaky breath, whispering the loaded words. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

At the other end of the line, Jim closed his eyes in relief, winging a thankful prayer to the powers that be. “I will never give up on you. Tell me where you are, Teri,” Jim pleaded, though he already knew. “Please, let me come to you. I have a couple really great bottles of wine,” he half-offered, half-begged. “We can talk. Or not. I just want to see you.”

In the darkness of her room, Teri exhaled and relaxed. In a way, bumping into him was a relief. The agonizing, the anticipation, it was over. Right now, as the code was written, Jim wasn’t angry or bitter, only confused and curious.

And achingly handsome and hard to resist. An insistent heat spiraled outward from her core, dark and desirous, reminding her the attraction between them was strong as it had ever been, whether she liked it or not. “At the RV resort at the north end of town.”

“By Slickrock. I’m familiar with it.” Though Jim had known where she was for weeks, he wanted her to choose to tell him. “Which spot?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Ten minutes.”

**

“Yes!” Jim leapt to his feet, ecstatic and giddy, nearly overturning the patio chair he’d occupied on the deck in his back yard.

Darting to the open back door, he yanked the screen door aside then quickly locked the knob for the house and pulled it to, racing for the detached garage and his Jeep before realizing his mistake.

“Gah!” He cursed, rooting under the shrubs alongside the garage, finding by touch the half-buried rock that covered the box sheltering his hidden key.

Intending only to snatch his keys from the kitchen table, he stumbled, cursing again, realizing his second mistake. “You forgot the wine too, you fool!”

Standing tiptoe, he opened the mini-wine refrigerator perched atop the kitchen’s standard refrigerator and slid a bottle of each red and white wine from it, clutching both in one large hand by their glass necks.

Despite his initial flubs, Jim reached the RV park in five.

Pulling his Jeep behind Teri’s car, he killed the Jeep’s engine.

Suddenly, it felt strange that Teri knew he was here, after the weeks of privately following her, watching her from the periphery of her life. Now, he was invited and the thought of being alone with her, so close to her, sent static shocks leaping across his synapses.

Grabbing the two bottles of wine from the passenger seat by the necks, he opened the vehicle door. Teri’s part of the RV park was dimly lit, but she must have seen the headlamps when he pulled up. The exterior door of the RV was open, leaving the screen in place to keep out insects drawn to the light.

Inside, Teri was a svelte silhouette backlit and haloed by the lights, her fluffy dog beside her on the upper step, watching him serenely. She’d changed her clothes, and Jim couldn’t take his eyes off the long stretches of exposed flesh along her delicate arms and legs any more than he’d been able to the first night he’d found her here.

If ever there was an angel, he thought. Or a devil. He smiled both to himself and her, approaching the door. “May I come in?”

Though Jim had changed out of work clothes and into casual shorts and a t-shirt, it did nothing to diminish his attractiveness. His worn t-shirt was snug about his biceps, shoulders and upper chest, draping at his narrow waist, and all Teri could think about the fraying cargo shorts was how much she wanted to explore each of the strategically placed pockets. Unconsciously, she licked her lips, backing away to allow him entry through the RV’s narrow door.

Glacial blue eyes skimmed the neat interior, then focused on Teri, crystalline light dancing in their depths. “Nice place.” He set the two bottles of wine on the kitchen counter. “Give me the tour?”

“Well, we have the front cab area, and Zoe’s messy room.” Teri laughed, gesturing at the over-cab bunk, unmade and littered with a child’s things.

“Zoe? Your daughter. That’s her name?”

When Teri nodded, with a grand gesture, Jim replied, “I like it. Carry on.”

“Kitchen, dining and family room. Also doubles as a bedroom if the need arises.”

Gliding toward him and turning to the side, Teri floated past him in a sweet cloud of lilac, detectable here absent the overpowering scents of the restaurant. In the close quarters, there was no avoiding brushing against him as she went, her dutiful dog trailing like a fluffy cygnet.

It took a titan force of will not to catch her, nestle her against his hips. You’re here to talk, Jim’s conscience reminded. Chivalrous as the sentiment is, he thought dourly, it’s singularly unsatisfying when the woman he’d so sorely missed for more than a decade was once again within reach of his hand.

Jim followed, stopping close behind her shoulder as Teri flipped on a light and gestured into the room beyond.

“Bedroom and bath.”

A queen-sized bed dominated the back area, flanked on either side by low dressers, the covers slightly rumpled where she’d sat since making it, either to dress or remove her work clothes.

Undressed.

His imagination began to wander again, then stopped. Above the nearer dresser was a collage frame with several photos. Focused on it, Jim eased his way into the room around her.

Stooping, he studied the images, mostly of her daughter. There was one of them together, holding a small fuzzy puppy that caught his eye. The girl was petite like her mother, but by his estimate, couldn’t have been more than five. But the photo captured his attention for another reason.

Someone else took it. Who?

“When was this?”

Leaning around him, Teri glanced at the photo he indicated.

“The day we got Evie,” she answered, deliberately vague. “One of my clients breeds Shelties. We happened to be there when a litter was ready for adoption. Evie was unclaimed and Zoe fell in love.”

Jim glanced down at the dog, her narrow nose angled up to stare at her mistress. “I can’t blame her. Looks like she wasn’t the only one in love.”

Teri smiled fondly at Evie, heart lurching at the first part of his comment. She exited the room, and Jim followed, noting the bunkbeds tucked behind the door.

When she stopped at the counter in the kitchen where he’d left the two bottles of wine, she laughed, “Two? How much are you used to drinking?”

He smiled, excusably drawing near in the small interior. “The red is a fantastic blend from a winery nearby. I brought the white because I didn’t know if you still preferred them.”

The blood pounded in Teri’s ears. Remembering you like white wine isn’t that hard. Get a grip already, she cautioned her violently skipping heart.

Jim gestured towards the bunkbeds, then the over-cab bunk and fold-out sofa. “There’s a lot of room in here. You have company often?”

Teri drew a sharp breath, looking away. “No. It belonged to a retired couple, lived across from us. They used to watch Zoe for me occasionally.”

“Where was that?”

Pulse throbbing, her mind racing, Teri knew she had to make this stop. She couldn’t go where these questions would lead. “Montreal.”

Jim raised his brows, astounded. The Teri he knew had been terrified to leave her family in Meridian to attend college in Boise ten miles away.

Teri shrugged, leaning against the cabinets, looking away from him. “They bought the RV to take their grandkids places, but he passed away shortly after. They never used it, so she sold it to— me.”

There it is!

She started to say ‘us’.

Jim wondered fleetingly if her husband had been Canadian. Reaching up he cupped her jaw, turning her face to his.

So perfect, he thought, his thumb caressing the lower margin of her lips. “There’s nowhere else to deflect the conversation, Teri. You knew these questions were going to come up.”

Jim was staring at her mouth, his thumb tracing along her lower lip in a way that knocked sparks off her like steel off flint. Teri trembled against the combustive chemistry between them, hovering just below flash point and poised to ignite.

Kiss him hummed along every nerve inside her, raising gooseflesh over her skin. Well, she justified, it would stop the questions.

Something in Jim shifted, feeling his supercharged energy draw towards her, seeking ground.

Without her deciding, her trembling fingertips brushed along his narrow hips, a shaky whisper fluttering against his thumb. “It’s not that,” she whispered. “It’s you.”

Dark heat flooded into Jim, and his eyes followed the path her hands were taking, consuming her touch with every sense. Her hazel-gold eyes smoldered, eager for tinder and oxygen he yearned to supply.

Badly.

He bent, brushing his lips along her jaw, her lilac-scented hair stirring when he breathed against her ear. Against him, Teri gave a breathy moan, tipping her head back and exposing the sensitive flesh along her throat, her eyes closed. The sound was more than he could stand.

Consuming desire flashed to uncontrolled life. He wanted her. All of her. Her mouth. The tender flesh in the crook of her shoulder that gave her gooseflesh. The softness on the insides of her arms and her thighs. That thought drew a husky growl from his throat.

Tangling his fingers into her hair, he pulled her hard, loving the feel of her body against his. At his back, her fists clenched and unclenched at the hem of his shirt. Raising it, her hands pressed flat against his skin, urging him closer.

Teri shivered when he pressed a kiss against the tender flesh at the base of her ear. Igniting, she turned into his kiss, opening her hot mouth to him. With frantic hands, she tugged at his shirt urgently, the kiss breaking as they stumbled against each other, crashing against the bathroom door.

As Jim reached up to pull his shirt over his head, Teri grazed her lips across his collarbones, breathing the clean male scent of him. She raked her fingers down his abdomen, delighting in his low growl and shuddered response.

Exhaling sharply, every muscle tense and rippling, Jim cursed. His mouth was against hers hungrily, his hands sliding under her shirt, his body achingly hard against her softness.

“I didn’t come to take advantage of you,” he rumbled, unwilling regardless to let her go.

“You didn’t.” Teri pushed him back roughly, then into her bedroom. Her fingers fumbled with the fastenings on his shorts, hungry mouth crashing against his, tangled tongues like pouring gas on an open flame. “I’m taking advantage of you. Don’t talk. Use your mouth for something else.” Her shirt followed his to the floor, and they tumbled to the bed.

Nudging a space between her thighs, Jim lay against her skin at last, kissing her gently in an effort to control the raging inferno she’d awakened. He let his hands wander, sating themselves as they fueled the rest of him, and her husky sighs became moaning gasps when his mouth followed in their wake, fluttering kisses along her soft midriff to her navel. His mind reeled, dizzy, free-falling into a distracted spiral as all of his senses reoriented towards her.

Had she always wielded this singular power over him? Had she always been this intoxicating? The writhing of her lithe body against him so maddening that he couldn’t stop himself, he couldn’t get enough? The scent and taste of her skin so addicting that it seared a permanent path, hot and raw, to the most primitive parts of his masculinity? Her husky whimpers blotting out everything else, wiping out all but his basest desires and driving him to distraction?

The thought made him pause.

He’d started asking questions, seeking—no! needing!—information, answers. And as soon as he’d drawn his mortars within sight of her fortifications, she’d launched her insidious cascading counterattack, taken his sense and his senses hostage in the overpowering swell.

He’d fallen victim to her!

She’d even admitted she was taking advantage of him!

Though, if he was honest with himself, he’d been fiercely courting that danger.

What kind of fool am I? What came over me? How did I ever think I had the wherewithal to get this close to her and not fall into her thrall?

Aware now, Jim withdrew slightly, his insubordinate body fighting him viciously. “Teri, I – can’t do this. Not right now. Not without understanding.” Unable to let go of her, he bowed, his forehead pressing into her velvety skin.

Teri swallowed a frustrated groan. “Understanding what?”

“Why you were afraid. Why you ran and you hid. All these years. Those were choices that didn’t include me.” Lifting his head, he studied her face, aching to see a crack in the barrier that separated her from him. “I need to understand why. Doing this, now, as much as I’d really like to,” his voice was husky with barely controlled desire, “would be giving you a new place to hide.”

Brutal truth, she thought, looking away.

And he has a better handle on it than he even knows. There was no refuting him. She’d known what her kiss intended, even if her body had imagined something else.

Teri nodded, relaxing beneath him, her hands falling away. “I understand.”

Jim watched her retreat, fortifying the barriers she had between them. He wanted to shake her, demand—something else.

Anything else!

For all the good it would do, he thought bitterly. He was laying siege to Masada. If he wanted in without destroying her, he would have to negotiate more carefully.

Pulling himself up, he leaned over her and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Call me tomorrow. Promise?”

Without waiting for an answer, Jim rose, groaning in frustration at the site of her on the bed below him. Scooping up his shirt, he fled.

Before you do something you’ll regret, he told himself, jamming the keys into the ignition of his Jeep. Forcing it into gear, he left the RV park, not daring to look back.

**

When Jim was gone, even the last faint sound of his engine replaced by the noisy crickets and croaking frogs, Evie leapt onto the bed in his place, curling into a warm fluffy ball against Teri’s side.

Teri wrapped around her, slowly growing numb.

It wasn’t as though there hadn’t been mutual attractions with other men over the years since college and Jim. In those cases, she’d made a choice, taking Zoe and her uncomplicated albeit isolated life over a relationship with a man, regardless of its potential. She’d feigned restlessness, never lingering in one place too long. Running and hiding, as Jim had noted.

Something about Jim didn’t abide those rules and never had. Even in college, when Teri knew her family didn’t approve of him, she’d been unable to stay away. His mere proximity overruled her choice. As Emily Dickinson had written, “The heart wants what the heart wants—or else it does not care.”

There was no doubt her heart cared. Truly.

Unwaveringly.

But Jim was clear when they were in college. He hadn’t wanted children. Looking at his life, it was clear that hadn’t changed. There’d be incalculable consequences getting involved with him now.

Sighing, Teri rose, pulled her shirt back over her head.

The loyal Evie followed her outside off lead. The night air was cool, soothing, and they wandered among the deepening shadows for a while before returning to the RV.

Turning off the lights, Teri crawled into bed still clothed and went to sleep.