Forget Me Not by Elizabeth Lowell
Alana nibbled on her lower lip as she eyed the deceptively simple appearance of fly rod and reel.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s give your way a try. Mine sure hasn’t done much.”
Rafe stepped into position behind Alana. Less than an inch separated them, for he had to be able to reach around her to guide the rod. He stood for several moments without touching her, letting her get used to his presence very close behind her.
“Okay so far?” he asked casually.
“Yes. . . . Just knowing that you understand how I feel makes it easier,” Alana admitted in a low voice.
She took a deep breath. The mixed scents of high-country air and sunshine and Rafe swept over her. His warmth was a tingling sensation from her shoulders to her knees. She felt his breath stir against the nape of her neck, sensed the subtle movements of his chest as he breathed, the slight catch of his flannel shirt against hers.
“Ready?” asked Rafe.
Alana nodded, afraid to trust her voice. The breathlessness she felt had little to do with her fear of being touched.
“Take up the rod,” he said.
She lifted the fly rod into position.
“I’m going to put my hand around your wrist and the rod at the same time,” said Rafe. “Okay?”
She took a deep breath. “Okay.”
He reached around Alana until his hand covered hers and wrapped around the rod.
The contrast of his tanned skin against her hand was arresting. It reminded Rafe of just how smooth Alana’s skin was, how pale where the sun had never touched it, how incredibly soft when she had welcomed his most intimate caresses.
For an instant Rafe closed his eyes and thought of nothing at all.
“All right so far?” he asked.
His voice was too husky, but there was nothing he could do about that any more than he could wholly control the growing ache and swelling of his desire.
“Yes.”
Alana’s breath drew out the word until it was almost a sigh. The warmth and strength of Rafe’s fingers curling around her hand fascinated her. She wanted to bend her head and brush her lips over his fingers. Just the thought of feeling his skin beneath her mouth made liquid fire twist through her.
Rafe took a quiet breath and hoped that Alana had no idea of how her closeness threatened his carefully imposed self-control.
“Now, remember,” he said. “The rod is only supposed to move in the arc between ten and two on our imaginary clock. That’s where the greatest power and balance are. You go above or below that and you’ll get in trouble. Ready?”
Alana nodded.
Rafe guided her arm and the rod through the short arc between ten and two, counting softly as he did.
“One, two, three, four. Now forward, two, three, four. And back, two, three, four.”
Smoothly, easily, the rhythm flowed from Rafe to Alana and then to the rod. She felt the energy curl up the length of the rod, pulling line through the guides, bending the rod tip at the end of the arc. Then came the soft hiss of line shooting up and back over her shoulder just before the rod came forward smoothly, energy pouring up its length on the forward stroke, fly line shooting out magically, Rafe’s voice murmuring, counting, energy and line pulsing along the rod.
Alana felt the rhythm take her until she forgot everything but Rafe’s voice and his warmth and the line suspended in curving beauty above the silver lake.
And still the rhythm continued, unvarying, serene and yet exciting, line pulsing out like a soundless song shimmering, lyrics sung in silence and written in liquid arcs curving across the dawn.
“Now,” murmured Rafe, bringing the rod forward and stopping it precisely at ten o’clock “Let it go”
Line hissed out in a long, ecstatic surge. Gracefully, delicately, the fly line, leader, and fly became a part of the lake. Not so much as a ripple marred the perfect surface of the water at the joining.
Alana let out a long breath, enthralled by the beauty of the line uncurling, the sweeping blend of energy and rhythm, the timeless consummation of line and lure and silver water.
“That was . . . incredible,” she said softly. “Thank you, Rafe.”
“What for?”
“For your patience. For teaching and sharing this with me.”
Rafe felt the shifting surface of Alana’s body against his as she sighed. He wanted to close his arms around her, enfolding her. He wanted to feel her flow along his body as she fitted herself against him.
At the very least, he wanted to be able to trace the velvet edge of her hairline with the tip of his tongue, inhaling the sunlight and womanly scent of her, testing the resilience of her flesh with gentle pressures of his teeth.
Ruthlessly Rafe suppressed the hunger that pulsed through him, tightening his body with each heartbeat, drawing it upon a rack of passion.
“You’re a joy to teach,” Rafe said in a quiet voice. “You should take it easy for a while, though. You’re using muscles you didn’t know you had. Why don’t we just sit in the sun and be lazy? There’s a patch of grass and wildflowers farther up the lake.”
“Sounds wonderful,” said Alana.
As she spoke, she stretched the muscles in her shoulders by twisting them from side to side. She didn’t hear the subtle intake of Rafe’s breath as she accidentally rubbed against him when she straightened again.
“But aren’t you supposed to be helping the dudes, too?” Alana asked.
“They know one end of a fishing rod from the other.”
Rafe took the fly rod from Alana, removed the hook, and wound in the line. He began breaking the rod into its component parts with quick movements of his hands, working with an economy and expertise born of long familiarity.
Alana watched Rafe’s skilled fingers and the flex of tendons beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his navy flannel shirt.
“The dudes aren’t what I expected,” she said.
Rafe looked up suddenly. His whiskey glance pinned her.
“What do you mean?” he asked quietly.
The intensity of his voice belied the softness of his tone.
“Stan’s looks, for one thing,” Alana said, shrugging. “I’m having a hard time getting used to seeing Jack’s ghost. Poor Stan. He must think I’m more than a little unwrapped.”
“He’ll survive,” said Rafe unsympathetically.
“I know. It’s just a bit awkward.” Alana sighed. “He and Janice have been such easy guests. They don’t complain. They don’t expect to be waited on. They’re funny and smart and surprisingly fit.”
Rafe made a neutral sound.
“Not many people could have ridden the trail to Broken Mountain one day and popped out of bed the next morning ready to slay dragons—or even trout,” Alana said dryly.
Rafe shrugged.
“And no matter how strange I act,” Alana said, “the two of them take it in stride. Even Stan, when I literally ran screaming from him, acted as though it was his fault, not mine.”
Rafe said something savage under his breath.
Abruptly Alana laughed. “I guess the dudes are as unusual as the dude ranch.”
“Luck of the draw,” he said tersely.
With quick motions Rafe slipped the rod into its carrying case.
“The fact that these good sports are your friends has more to do with it than luck,” retorted Alana.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed into topaz lines. “What are you hinting at?”
“I know what you’re doing, Rafe.”
“And what is that?” he asked softly.
“You’re helping Bob get started.”
Rafe said nothing.
“You know how much he needs cash to buy out Sam and Dave,” Alana persisted, “and you know Bob doesn’t want to destroy the land to make a quick cash killing. So you beat the bushes for friends who could help Bob launch a dude ranch.”
Rafe grunted.
“Don’t worry,” added Alana quickly, resting her hand for an instant on Rafe??
With a long, soundless sigh, Rafe let out the breath he had been holding. He smiled ruefully at Alana as he packed away the last of the fishing gear.
But Rafe said nothing about Bob, neither confirming nor denying her conclusions.
In companionable silence, Alana and Rafe walked along the margin of the lake, skirting boulders and gnarled spruces. Spring and summer had come late to the high country this year. Wildflowers still bloomed in the sheltered places, making windows of color against the pale outcroppings of granite. Delicate, tenacious, radiant with life, drifts of wildflowers softened the harsh edges of rock and stark blue sky.
At the head of the third lake, a broad cascade seethed over slick rocks into the shallows. The cascade drained the second, higher lake in the chain. That lake was invisible behind the rocky shoulder of Broken Mountain.
The cascade itself was a pale, shining ribbon of white that descended the granite slope in a breathtaking series of leaps. The sun was more than halfway to noon, pouring transparent warmth and light over the bowl where the third lake lay.
Rafe stopped in a small hollow that was a hundred feet from the cascade. Evergreens so dark they were almost black formed a natural windbreak. Topaz aspens burned in the sunlight and quivered at the least movement of air, as though the trees were alive and breathing with tiny, swift breaths.
Rafe pulled a waterproof tarp from his pack. Silver on one side, deepest indigo on the other, the tarp could gather or scatter heat, whichever was required. He put the dark, heat-absorbent side up, knowing that the ground was cool despite the sun. Spread out, the tarp made an inviting surface for two people to eat or sleep on comfortably.
“Hungry?” asked Rafe, lifting Alana’s pack off her shoulders.
Alana was about to say no when her stomach growled its own answer.
With an almost soundless chuckle, Rafe went to his backpack. Quickly he pulled out a snack of apples, hard-boiled eggs, and chocolate raisins.
Alana’s stomach made insistent noises. She looked chagrined.
“It’s the air,” said Rafe reassuringly, concealing a smile.
“If I do everything my stomach tells me to, I won’t be able to fit into my clothes,” she grumbled.
“Then buy new ones,” he suggested, uncapping a canteen full of cold tea. “Ten more pounds would look good on you.”
“You think so?” she asked dubiously.
“I know so.”
“My costume designer is always telling me to lose more weight.”
“Your costume designer is as full of crap as a Christmas goose.”
Rafe divided the food between Alana and himself.
She smiled blissfully. “In that case, I’ll have another handful of chocolate raisins.”
“What about me?” asked Rafe, his voice plaintive and his eyes brilliant with amusement.
“You,” she said with a sideways glance, “can have my hard-boiled egg.”
Rafe laughed aloud and pushed his pile of chocolate raisins over to Alana’s side of the tarp. He left her egg in place. But when Alana reached for the new pile of sweets, he covered it swiftly.
“Nope,” he said, smiling at her. “Not until you eat the egg and the apple.”
“Slave driver.”
“Count on it,” said Rafe.
He bit into his own apple with a hearty crunching sound.
They ate slowly, enjoying flavors heightened by clean air and healthy appetites. When she had eaten the last chocolate raisin, Alana sighed and stretched luxuriously. The exuberant splash of the cascade formed a soothing layer of sound between her and the rest of the world. Nothing penetrated but Rafe’s occasional low-voiced comments about fly-fishing and ranching, and the silky feel of high-country sunshine.
“Why don’t you take a nap?” he suggested finally.
Alana caught herself in mid-yawn. “There’s something sinful about taking a nap before noon.”
“In that case, let’s hear it for sin.” Rafe smiled crookedly. “Go ahead, wildflower. You didn’t get enough sleep last night, or a lot of nights before that.”
He unbuttoned his flannel shirt, revealing a dark blue T-shirt beneath. With a few quick motions, he shaped the thick flannel shirt into a pillow.
“Here,” Rafe said to Alana. “Use this. I don’t need it.”
Alana tried to object but couldn’t get any words past the sudden dryness in her mouth.
Even in her dreams, Rafe had not looked so overwhelmingly male. The T-shirt defined rather than concealed the slide and coil of muscles. With every movement Rafe made, every breath he took, his tanned skin stretched over a body whose latent power both shocked and fascinated her.
Suddenly Alana wanted to touch Rafe, to trace every ridge and swell of flesh, to know again the compelling male textures of his body.
She closed her eyes but still she saw Rafe, sunlight sliding over his skin, sunlight caressing him, sunlight burning in his eyes and her blood.
“Alana?” Rafe’s voice was sharp with concern.
“You’re right,” Alana said in a shaky voice. “I haven’t been getting enough sleep.”
Rafe watched as she stretched out on the tarp, her cheek against the shirt he had rolled up for her. He would rather she had used his lap as a pillow, but was afraid if he suggested it, the relaxed line of her lips would tighten with tension and fear.
Yet for a moment, when Alana had looked at him as though she had never seen him before, Rafe had hoped . . .
“Better?” he asked, watching Alana’s body relax, into deep, even breathing.
“Yes.”
“Then sleep, wildflower. I’m here.”
Alana sighed and felt herself spiraling down into a sleep where no nightmares waited.
10
W HEN ALANA WOKE up, the sun was on the other side of noon. She rolled over sleepily and realized that she was alone.
“Rafe?”
No one answered.
She sat up and looked around. Through the screen of evergreens and aspens she saw Rafe outlined against blue water. He had found another rock shelf leading out into the lake. He was standing at the end of the granite finger. The fly rod was in his hands. Line was curling exquisitely across the sky.
For a few moments Alana watched, captured by the grace of the man and the moment when line drifted soundlessly down to lie upon still water.
Except Alana couldn’t actually see the line touch the surface of the lake, because trees blocked her view.
She stood up and started toward the shoreline, then realized that once Rafe saw her, he would probably stop fishing and start teaching her once again. She wasn’t ready for that. She felt too relaxed, too at peace—and too lazy—to attempt anything that required concentration.
What she really wanted to do was to sit quietly, watching Rafe and the lyric sweep of line against the high-country sky.
Alana looked back down the lakeshore to where she and Rafe had been earlier. She saw no place to sit and watch him that wouldn’t immediately bring her into Rafe’s view.
She looked left to the cascade dancing whitely down rocks turned black by water. Rafe was facing away from the cascade, looking down the lake toward the cabins. The position gave him a hundred feet in front of the fly rod and an equal amount in back without anything to obstruct the motion of the line.
And he was using every bit of that two hundred feet.
On tiptoe, Alana peered through the wind-twisted branches of a fir, holding her breath as the curve of the fly line grew and grew, expanding silently, magically. Rafe’s left arm worked in perfect counterpoint to his right as he stripped line off the reel, almost throwing fly line up through the guides as his right arm pumped smoothly, sending energy coursing through the rod.
“How are you doing that?” muttered Al
She stepped farther to her left, but she still couldn’t see exactly what Rafe was doing to make the line lengthen so effortlessly. With a small, exasperated sound, she worked her way along the increasingly rugged shoreline, trying to find a spot that would allow her to watch Rafe without being seen.
Alana leaped from stone to stone, avoiding the small boggy spots where coarse grass and tiny flowers grew, until she found herself confronted by the barrier of the cascade. She turned around and looked back at Rafe, who was about sixty yards away from her by now.
Unfortunately, she still couldn’t see what he was doing with his hands. Nor could she go any farther forward without coming up against the cascade. She could either go back, or she could go up the boulder-tumbled slope.
With a muttered word, Alana looked at the jumble of stone rising on either side of the frothing water. She wouldn’t have to go very far up the cascade to get the view she wanted. Just far enough to allow her to look over Rafe’s shoulder, as it were. If she didn’t get too close to the water, the climb wouldn’t be too hard. Besides, she had been raised hiking and scrambling along mountain rivers and up steep slopes.
Alana turned and began climbing over the lichen-studded boulders. Twenty feet away, the cascade churned and boiled, making both mist and a cool rushing thunder. She avoided the slippery rocks, seeking the dry ones.
Within a few minutes she was breathless, gaining two feet in height for every foot forward. She persisted anyway, scrambling and balancing precariously, until she stood on a ledge of granite that was barely eighteen inches deep.
She stopped because there was no other choice. In front of her rose a slick outcropping of rock six feet high, and not a handhold in sight.
“Well, this had better be far enough.”
When Alana turned to look, it felt like the earth was dropping away beneath her feet. Unexpected, overwhelming, a fear of heights froze her in place.
Twenty feet away, the cascade frothed down the steep mountainside, water seething and racing, white and thunder, and wind whipping drops of water across her face like icy rain. Thunder and ice and the world falling away, leaving her helpless, spinning, darkness reaching up for her.