Thunder Snow (Thunder On The Mountain Series) Read online

  The former silver mining town was now a ghost town, and I had wanted to do some shooting up there for a while. The sun and warmth, combined with my tingling senses and diverted mental state, were a great combination for what I had in mind. I couldn’t have been more pleased.

  Caribou was exactly what I was looking for that day. There wasn’t much there, only a few stone ruins and a dilapidated wooden building, but that kept me busy for quite a while. And then I just wandered. Wandered the hills, drove the back roads, stopping frequently to take pictures of things that caught my eye.

  Sometime during the late afternoon, I found myself in Boulder. I stopped at a familiar haunt to grab a bite to eat, all the while thinking of Jack, thinking of the morning, feeling like a teenager with a crush, smiling a secret smile when I remembered. By the time I got to Nederland, the sun had set, but the lights were still on at the Amber Rose. I stopped in to see Sam.

  I stepped back and held the door open to allow a matronly patron to leave. Sam’s scowl turned to a bright smile when he saw me coming in.

  “What has you looking like such a grump, my friend?”

  “That was ol’ Mornin’ Sun. What a complete misnomer. She ain’t anything like her name.”

  “I take it she’s not gonna be warming your bed anytime soon?”

  Sam made a noise that sounded like a bark and snickered as he wiped down the counter. “Nicest thing I can say about ol’ Mornin’ Sun is that she ain't a twin.”

  When I realized what he had said, we broke into laughter.

  “No wonder they call you Wicked Sam. You’re incorrigible.”

  “I do my best,” he said. “Getcha a cuppa coffee?”

  “Not tonight, Sam, but thanks. I just stopped in to see your old face. I wanted to tell you what a treasure I think you are.”

  Blushing, he leaned across the bar and patted my hand. “I always knew ya, even though ya didn’t know me, so I jest feel like ya’ve come home. But I gotta say, I been findin’ m’self getting’ madder and madder ‘bout that story ya told. Wish I could have five minutes with that varmit.”

  “Oh, Sam, I love that about you, your unconditional acceptance. But here’s a big lesson I learned from Jason. I’m not gonna let anyone steal my joy anymore. HE is not the one that gets to be in charge of my life. It was awful what happened. Let me help you let go of it like you’ve helped me.”

  “Jest can’t help but thinkin’ ‘bout what woulda happened ta ya. Ya change lives. I’m glad yer here.”

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

  As I drove the short drive home, I thought about how laid back this life was in comparison to what I had known up until this point. Perspective is an amazing thing. I was having a paradigm shift about what was important in my life and what wasn’t.

  Completely relaxed, all I wanted was to complete my day in the ‘pond’ they called the bathtub. The water fanned out from the shower head above like a waterfall. As I slid under the warmth of the flowing water, I laughed to myself at the random things that reminded me of Jack, like the ocean blue of the tub being the color of his eyes. Yes, I was smitten, no doubt about it.

  So smitten was I that I thought I conjured him up when I opened my eyes and saw him staring at me in the mirror. I closed my eyes, slid deep into the water, and chuckled.

  “What’s so funny, little one?” he said softly.

  “Jack?!” I said, splashing water as I came up hurriedly.

  “You were expecting someone else, maybe?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I minded you showing up at odd hours.” I felt myself blushing for my loose tongue and slid deeper under the water.

  Jack came in and sat on the edge of this magnificent tub that was worked into the mountainside.

  “Your most attractive quality, in my opinion, is that you don’t seem to have a filter on your honesty. I am often surprised you don’t hide behind guile. I’ve thought of little else all day.”

  “’Thought of little else all day’ meaning my honesty?” I asked.

  Smiling, he turned his gaze on me, the vision I had just been comparing to the blue of the pool. “Thought of little else all day besides you, and many of your different facets,” he said as he walked across the room and removed a towel from the heated holder.

  “My facets or my assets?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  As he approached, he held the towel open to wrap me in. “Wondering how in the world you have come to occupy so much of my thought space. Wondering what kind of magnet you have that keeps drawing me back to you. Wondering what kind of spell you’ve cast that I can't seem to break.”

  Shocked at his words, at the thought behind them, at what they did to my entire being, I stepped into the towel, into his arms, and said quietly, “You don’t really want to, do you?”

  I felt his body still. “Don’t really want to what?”

  “Don’t really want to break the spell.”

  He relaxed against me. “Certainly not tonight. None of this was in my plans, but nothing could have made me stay away. I have been hard for you all day. Have thought of the taste of you all day. Thought of the way you moved under my lips, and wanted you moving under me since the moment I walked out of here this morning."

  “Well isn’t that a coincidence? I’ve been thinking of your lips all day. Wondering if you inject drugs into them. Wondering what magic they hold, and how they draw so much out of me. So it appears as though we are sharing an addiction,” I smiled as I headed to the bedroom and lit a solitary candle. “An addiction that could easily become an obsession.”

  When he pulled my bath-warmed body against him, I shivered. I could feel the length of his hardness against me. I moaned deeply.

  “I can’t ever remember wanting anything like I want you,” he said against my lips. And then his lips slid down my body, slowing at my breasts, my navel, and then my warmth that was writhing in wait for him.

  I clutched at his hair, holding on because I never wanted these sensations to stop. “Please,” I begged, not sure what it was I needed. “I want you. Don’t stop.”

  He worked his way up my eager body, kissing my lips in a way that was becoming familiar and necessary to my sanity.

  “Please,” I said again.

  “Please, what, angel?”

  “Please help me,” I said breathlessly. “I need you. Now.”

  He slid his hard tip against me. Slid his wet hardness gently over my most sensitive area as I moved, wanting more of him.

  He continued to kiss me, drug me, embrace me. My hand reached for him, guiding him into my waiting moistness. Slowly, gently at first, his kisses activated every nerve in my body until I was desperate.

  When I could stand it no more, he entered me completely, hard, deep, wet, all the while working in a motion as ageless as time. But now it was our time, and I couldn’t get enough.

  As he filled me, brought me to the brink, slowed, then brought me to the brink again, he said softly against my lips, “Are you ready, little one?”

  “Jack . . .”

  “Imagine that we are on a cliff,” his voice was soft as he moved harder inside me. “You and I are the only ones in the world who will ever know where this particular cliff is. We are the only ones who will ever be able to revisit this memory we are creating . . . this interlude when our worlds stand still, if only for a moment.”

  His words captivated me. The spell he was weaving around us was magical. I couldn’t get enough.

  When I started to unravel, he was right there with me. “You are so exquisite. Let me watch you melt for me. Let me feel you around me, pulling me in and making us one.” I’m not sure I actually cried out his name as I found my fulfillment, but my whole being called to him.

  A moment later, I felt his release, felt him tighten inside of me, felt his body shiver gently.

  After a few minutes, he rolled to his back and took me with him, wrapped in his arms. “I have pictured you this way dozens of times, but I have never
come close to realizing the true beauty of it, of you. What are you doing to me? Is this a witch’s spell you're casting?” he said quietly, running his fingers through my hair, twisting the end into a curl.

  We spoke quietly for a while, then he sat up abruptly.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” I hoped that I didn’t sound desperate, pleading, but I couldn’t bear for this night to end.

  He turned back towards me, resting on an elbow as he pulled the cover away from my body. “You are perfection to me,” he said, almost wistfully as his eyes covered me where his hands had been just a short while ago.

  “No, I’m not leaving, angel. I’m going to lead you to your alluring shower and lather every inch of your body with just soap and my hands."

  “Then what are you waiting for?” I called over my shoulder, wondering how just his words could inflame me again so soon.

  I was sure, as long as I lived, that shower would be a memory that lived with me forever. Tender, passionate, playful, serious, intense, I was finding a side of Jack I could certainly get used to.

  “Do you do this often?” he asked, almost hesitantly.

  “You mean take showers with tall, dark, handsome men in a remote cabin in the middle of nowhere?”

  “No, are you with many men?”

  Sensing that my answer was important, I took the bar of soap and started lathering him as he had been doing to me. “It’s been years, Jack. I have been so sidetracked, first with my mother’s illness and death, and then throwing myself into my work to prove something, although I’m not sure any more who I was trying to prove it to. Then there was the debacle with Jason.

  “Until I walked into the Amber Rose and saw you standing there talking to Sam, there hasn’t been one man in as long as I can remember who has made my heart flutter, has ignited my senses, has made me WANT the way that you do."

  “My turn,” he said, removing the soap from my hands and turning me away from him. “Put your hands against the wall and lean forward," he said hoarsely, soaping my shoulders, cupping my breasts, running his slick hands down my spine.

  When he came to the base of my spine, his hands stilled, then gently moved lower as he entered me. Moaning, I leaned even further forward, pushing out to get more of his ministrations. I felt him hard, rubbing against me. “It takes nothing for you to get me this way. Feel what you do to me?”

  His hands came around to the front of me, sliding into my hidden folds, rubbing his soapy hands over me, while he guided himself into me from behind. “Oh, Jack, that’s wonderfully delicious.” Was it my voice that sounded so distant? But I didn’t want words just then, I wanted to feel.

  I reached behind me to wrap my fingers around his shaft. Soapy and slick, he grew even harder as I held him in my fingers, milking, pressing, coaxing. The warm water and woodland setting added to the enchantment of the moment as we reached a shattering climax together.

  Spent, I turned in his arms, and began what could easily become my favorite waking pastime, kissing Jack. By the time we had dried each other off, we collapsed, sated, into the softness of the king sized bed, cuddled together in the middle.

  “I’m glad tomorrow is Sunday,” I smiled with my eyes closed. “Not sure I’ll have the fortitude to meet anyone and be coherent for a while. Not sure I’ll even be able to stand up.”

  He kissed the top of my head and wrapped his arms around me even tighter. “Sleep, little one. Sleep as long as you can.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When I woke sometime before the sun came up, Jack and I were spooning. I could feel his hardness, and wondered at his amazing prowess. “It’s only you," he whispered, reading my mind.

  “It’s always there, just below the surface, the desire for you never goes away. There are so many words that come to mind when I think of you . . . exciting, tingling, tension, frustration, kissing, deep, moan, arouse, magic, petting, legs, lips, sexy, desire . . . you get the idea.”

  “Just listening to you makes my heart beat faster,” I blushed. “I love your words.”

  I rolled over on top of him, my hair framing our faces. When I started kissing him, I couldn’t believe I could actually want him again. I started rocking against his hardness. I rubbed my breasts against his chest.

  “I want to taste you again, little one,” he said softly, cupping my hips and drawing me forward. I inched forward so I was positioned over his face, my hands against the wall holding me steady. As I rocked back and forth over him, my thighs tightened as his hands drew me closer. I leaned back and took him in my hand, caressing, exciting.

  It was such pleasure to slide down over him, wet, hot, ready, and ride him deep inside of me. It was several hours after we were finished before we woke again, sun high, bodies famished for food.

  He pulled on his jeans; I pulled on his shirt with only one button holding it closed. We made a huge breakfast of freshly squeezed orange juice, bread, bacon, and eggs.

  “No way I could eat like this normally,” I laughed, “but I think I’ve worked off enough calories in the past twelve hours to make this an acceptable exception.”

  We shared funny childhood stories and poignant memories. He told me about how he had met my father not too long after Jack had moved to town, and how they had struck up a close and companionable relationship. Jack told me he had helped my dad work through some decisions while building this hideaway, and they had remained close over the years.

  “What do you have on your agenda today, angel?”

  “I was just going to do some editing of the great shots I got yesterday at Caribou.”

  “I’ve been around long enough to know some places you might find interesting. I’m happy to be the tour guide if you want to grab your camera, and we can get some food when we’re done. Only thing you might want is a change of shoes.”

  The thought of spending the day with Jack, carefree, alone, undivided attention . . . my heart raced at the prospect as I got my equipment together, putting on the appropriate clothing for rocky jaunts. Jack packed a small travel bag of water, snacks, and other items that might come in handy while we were out.

  “Thanks for the loan of your shirt,” I said saucily, tossing it back to him. “Much as I hate to cover up that gorgeous chest of yours, it's probably best.”

  “Not sure I will ever be able to see this shirt again without seeing you in it. It’s a lot better looking on you. We have several options. Have you taken pictures at Sugarloaf yet? Gold Hill?”

  “Not yet. I didn’t know if there was anything to see in Sugarloaf, seeing as how it’s only about two square miles."

  “Okay, I know just where to take you. We’ll make a few stops and I’ll turn you on to some completely different experiences," he said as we loaded up the Cruiser.

  “Just your very existence turns me on. Lead on, Macduff.”

  As we headed out the drive into the heart of town, he said, “Are you aware that’s a misquote?”

  “Oh, my God, you crack me up. Is there anything you’re not aware of? I’M aware of it, but would never have pegged you for a Shakespearean buff."

  “I’m not. I just like the original meaning better. Hmmm, ‘Lay on, Macduff’ could take on a whole new meaning.”

  The joy of the morning began our carefree, perfect day. The weather was warm with just a few clouds for contrast, the scenery still had a lot of color, the camaraderie was blissful. Wherever we went, if there were people, they knew Jack.

  “Is there anywhere we could go where the people don’t know you?”

  “You spend enough time wandering around up here, there aren’t that many people, so you’re bound to run into the same ones sooner or later," he said with a smile.

  “Before we head out of town, let’s head over to the Carousel of Happiness,” he offered. “In addition to being a work of art, it’s unusual to have such a display in an out-of-the-way place like this.”

  I had heard fascinating stories about it, and couldn’t wait to get some unique shots. The larg
er-than-life figures of the Carousel, all hand carved, were a distinctive blend of vintage and imaginatively new, with bursts of bright colors. The traditional calliope carousel music added to the flavor of the experience. I was in seventh heaven capturing not only the overall feeling, but also the unique blends of fanciful adaptations of Victorian and 21 Century entertainment.

  “Each of the fifty-eight life-sized creatures was hand carved by an ex-Marine, and each one represented something special. He kept a vision in his mind of a carousel in a mountain meadow to help him survive the horrors of Viet Nam back in the 60s.”

  “That must have taken him forever.”

  “Well over two decades, but it was a town project, and all of the profits go to charity. He wanted to help kids with disabilities, especially those in small Colorado mountain communities, so it’s fully handicapped accessible. Scott Harrison is a great guy. This was a genuinely unifying project. Almost everyone in town had some part in it. It's so much more than just an attraction.”

  “The story is almost as captivating as the Carousel. It takes on an even greater appeal knowing the history of it.”

  Jack helped me to see and feel new things at each place we stopped. I couldn’t imagine much more capacity in my heart to hold the emotions he was creating.

  We headed into Boulder for dinner. We stopped at an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant that appeared intimate but not too fancy, the sign proclaiming it to be Bertolino’s Trattorio. The owner greeted Jack with a hug of genuine affection. "It’s been way too long, my friend. It’s so good to see you again. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  “Staying in Nederland most of the time these days. Like the way of life there better, like the people a whole lot better.”

  “It is truth, Jack, it is truth. And, che bella donna! Who is your magnificent lady?”

  “This is Callie Weston. Callie, my old friend, Angelo Bertolino.”

  “Certainly my pleasure,” I smiled as Angelo leaned over to kiss my hand.