Page 22 of It’s You

J oy cometh with the dawn.

Darcy woke up to the lavender early morning light filtering in through the voluminous white cottage curtains on either side of the windows in her bedroom.

She stretched her arms straight back over her head until her knuckles found the headboard and curled, then she snuggled back under the thick down comforter and sighed.

Jack.

She smiled drowsily and turned to hug her pillow, her body hot and sensitive and tingling. Her dreams of him had been relentless.

Oh, Jack.

She stretched again, then placed her hand on her thigh, sweeping it slowly along the outside of her hips, to her waist, grazing the side of her breast, over the bunched fabric of her nightgown to her neck, where her fingers found the pulse point he had touched so long ago.

The same place to which he had pressed his lips in the garage last night.

She kept her fingers there for a moment, as if in communion with him.

She thought of him squatting in front of the fire, firm thighs straining against the confining denim of his jeans.

She knew if she had kneeled beside him and touched him there, he would have been hard and warm.

She remembered him blowing on his hot stew, lips pursed, but still soft, just how they were when she kissed him.

She moved her fingers to her lips and closed her eyes, searching for the physical imprint of his lips brushing hers all those years ago.

For the briefest moment, a thrill shot through her as she remembered, really remembered.

His fingers pressing lightly on her throat.

Phantom lips brushing hers in the dark. A trembling hand reaching for hers.

Then Darcy moaned softly, memories of last night closing the gap of so many years, flooding her mind, and she closed her eyes, watching the scenes as if from a movie.

It was one thing to know that, theoretically, your body was capable of bucking and shuddering in climax.

It was something else entirely to experience it for the first time.

She swung her legs out of bed and headed into her bathroom to shower and brush her teeth.

As the hot water pounded against her sensitive skin, she thought about his theory on their first kiss.

That it somehow bound them to each other.

Darcy knew firsthand how much the Métis culture influenced Willow on a very real level, and Willow was only one-quarter Métis.

If Darcy truly cared for Jack, she would try to make space in her heart, and more importantly in her head, for his family’s traditions and stop labeling them as superstition.

Anyway, she considered, as she pulled on some soft, broken-in jeans, a white T-shirt, a navy and white plaid flannel shirt, and a heavy, navy-blue wool sweater, there could be worse things than a sweltering hot man with a gorgeous house being bound to you.

Darcy braided her hair into a single French plait that trailed down past her shoulders and pulled on some cotton hiking socks.

Not to mention their chemistry. She always thought it was cheesy when authors wrote about characters setting off sparks between them, but for the first time in her life, she understood what that meant.

She remembered the bonfires they’d light in her backyard at the end of summer, the way the sparks would crackle and snap, tiny particles of fire dancing, floating up into the air toward the sky to mingle with the stars.

That’s how it felt to be with Jack. That’s how it had always felt to be anywhere near him.

A week. It had only been a week since she looked out the windows of the Second Congregational Church and saw Jack standing at the edge of Proctor Woods. And yet it felt like so much longer. Darcy looked at herself in the mirror.

“It’s because you waited for him for so long,” she murmured to herself.

And while she was still trying to figure out some of the mysteries that accompanied Jack’s reemergence in her life, Darcy found she cared less and less about the intricate web of whys in their relationship and more about the feelings she had for him, the whole and complete way he made her feel for the first time in her life.

She walked downstairs quietly and scribbled a note for Willow, whom she hadn’t seen since dinner on Thursday night.

With Jack. Back tonight.

She grabbed her sunglasses and a banana, then ran back to the kitchen counter and added a saucy Maybe.

She grinned at the note, then went to sit on her porch steps until Jack picked her up.

“So you lived there? When you went to high school here?”

Jack had picked her up and driven her right back to his house, suggesting they climb the small peak on his land before returning to the lodge for lunch.

She followed behind him as he led the way.

She couldn’t have wished for a better view, frequently sighing as he maneuvered over a fallen tree or boulder, offering his hand to her far more often than she actually needed it.

The wonders of nature, aside from Jack’s incredibly toned ass, were completely lost on her.

He was dressed similarly to Darcy in two or three layers, the outermost of which was a brown leather field jacket with a black corduroy collar.

The way the coat picked up the color of his eyes made her heart smile with pleasure.

But presently, it was the back of his light blue, worn jeans, and the way they molded to the muscles of his legs, that were capturing her attention.

“Yep. This land’s been in my family for a long, long time. Since before Proctor Woods was…Proctor Woods.”

“What was it before?”

“ Bois Loup Garou ,” he said matter-of-factly, navigating another fallen tree trunk.

Darcy tilted her head to the side, watching the muscles in his thigh flex as he made his way over. She sighed. Again.

“Huh. I had no idea. Other than the Abenaki Indians, I thought the Proctors and Turners were the first people here.”

“Do you know what Abenaki means, Darcy?”

“Nope.” She pushed a branch out of her path and worked to keep up with him.

“ Wabum means light, and a’ki means earth. Light of the earth. Abenaki. But the French called them Natio Luporem, the nation of wolves.”

“Huh,” said Darcy, pausing to catch her breath. “The Métis are half Abenaki and half French, right?”

“That’s right.” He had walked several paces further than Darcy, but stopped and turned around, smiling at her from a slightly higher elevation. “How’d you get so smart?”

“You haven’t heard? I’m very smart. I’ll have you know I’m a doctor.”

He swung the backpack off his pack and rooted around for a water bottle, handing it to her. “Can you keep going, Doc Turner? I want to make the summit before the sun gets too high.”

Darcy took a swig and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Don’t call me Doc Turner. That was my dad’s handle.”

“His…handle?”

“He worked up on Mt. Washington. In the observatory. MWOBS. When we radioed up the mountain, that’s what they called him.”

“I don’t remember him being at the wedding on Saturday.”

“He wasn’t. He passed away a few years ago.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking about his prematurely weathered face and twinkling blue eyes. “He spent more time at MWOBS than any other single place on the planet.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, taking her hand again. “Must have loved it up there.”

“Yeah. He was more interested in stormy weather than spending time with his family.” She dropped his hand. “That’s unfair, I guess. He loved what he did. He was good at it.”

“You must have admired him on some level,” said Jack, pushing a stray strand of light hair behind her ear tenderly. “You’re a scientist. Like him. Maybe you didn’t love everything about him, but you still loved him?”

She didn’t want to talk about her complicated relationship with her father anymore. She took his hand and pulled him so they’d start walking again.

“What about your parents, Jack? I don’t ever remember meeting them.”

“They live north of Quebec.”

“Sisters and brothers?”

“They’re all up there,” Jack answered without elaborating. Darcy decided not to push him.

“Your parents gave you this land?”

“Not technically. I told them I wanted to move back, and they said that the old lodge hadn’t been touched in two decades.

When I got here, the garage was in a heap.

My guess was too many heavy snows. The lodge wasn’t in such bad shape.

Lots of overgrowth, and the squirrels and raccoons had gotten in there. But Amory is a fast worker.”

“He has a good crew too,” Darcy agreed, pride in her voice.

Amory had eschewed traditional education in favor of starting his own contracting business.

Her parents had been skeptical at first, but they had to admit that Amory was a hard worker, and he’d chosen a field in which he could excel.

He was one of the most popular contractors in Carlisle and the Colebrook area, and on his way to building a solid, reputable business.

“So did I understand you right when you said that the French were here before Proctors?”

“Carlisle wasn’t settled by migrating Bostonians until the late 1700s. The French and Métis settlers were here as early as the 1600s.”

“Whew! And your family somehow held onto this land?”

“Something like that,” he grumbled.

“Beauloup…like Bois Loup Garou ? Wait. Beau means beautiful, right? Beautiful what?”

“Wolf. Beautiful wolf.” He turned and faced her, biting his lower lip, his face tense. He chuckled, but it sounded tinny and didn’t match his expression. “Try having that surname at grade school in Quebec. Endless hours of amusement for your schoolmates.”

“I think it fits,” she said gently, smiling at him encouragingly. “I love the Métis names, the way they honor the natural world.”

She could have sworn she saw him wince before turning around quickly and making his way around a boulder.

“Jack?” she called. She didn’t see him up ahead on the other side of the boulder. “Jack?”