Found In Lost Valley

Her face warmed, and she hoped the blush wasn’t noticeable. With her red hair and fair skin inherited from her grandmother, Amelia found her emotions seemed to lie too close to the surface for her personal comfort.

The wind caused the flames to dance wildly in the grate. She realized she felt the same way inside—sort of wild, as if her spirit wanted to dance, and hot, as if a fire burned in a secret furnace inside her.

“Wasn’t that once a wood fireplace?” he asked. “I cleaned the chimneys here one year when your grandparents were still alive.”

“I—” She had to clear the huskiness from her throat. “I had it converted to gas this summer. It was too much work to take care of the wood and ashes, but I do enjoy a fire on cold evenings like this.”

He nodded in understanding, his eyes half-closed as he gazed at the natural-looking, flaming logs. He had heavy eyelids—bedroom eyes, the girls at school had called them—and the shifting light gave him the dangerous look of a rogue or pirate.

His jawline was strong, his cheeks rather prominent, with interesting shadows beneath them. His lips were evenly matched and his smile entrancing. His hair was curly, which he tried to disguise by keeping it cut short. In school, it had flowed in ripples to his shoulders. She’d wanted to run her fingers through the shining strands.

The telltale heat climbed her neck. Fortunately, he was still gazing into the fire. She found herself staring when he raised the mug to his lips. His throat moved as he swallowed, then he held the mug in both hands, his fingers caressing the smooth porcelain idly, his thoughts faraway as he absently observed the flames.

Her skin tingled all over as if he was stroking her body the way he did the cup. Hunger and longing and a mixture of feelings exploded in her, urgent and reckless. Shocked, she leaped to her feet. “Good night,” she said.

He glanced up, surprised at her abrupt action. But Amelia fled to the bedroom and closed the door. She hesitated about locking it, then realized that was silly. He would hardly come charging in after her.

“Good night,” she heard him call. “Sweet dreams.”

Dreams, she scoffed silently as she climbed into bed a few minutes later. She’d had enough of dreams to last her a lifetime. She was owner of a thriving bed-and-breakfast business, one that she’d built with her own hard work and planning. Who needed dreams?

Everyone, the wind whispered against the dark window, its piping notes somehow sad and more than a little lonely.

Another night flooded her memory, haunting her with the sweet nostalgia of times past, of being sixteen and so very much in love.

Seth turned off the gas to the fake logs in the fireplace and snuggled into bed. The sofa mattress was surprisingly comfortable. He bunched the pillow behind his head, his mind on the woman who slept in the next room.

His libido had acted up while he used her shower. The bathroom was filled with pleasant, feminine scents from shampoo, powder and cologne. Other facets of her personal space also tweaked his imagination, such as the scented candles dotting the wide border of the tub.

The fact that the candles had been used conjured up several intimate scenes. He could picture her relaxing in the tub, that tangled mass of auburn curls pinned up on her head, the candle glow highlighting her fair skin, which looked as delicate as peach petals.

A shudder ran through him and heat erupted deep within. He sucked in air like a man who’d been in danger of smothering. His libido paid no attention to the calming effect this was supposed to produce. The sheet tented as his body responded in blatant hunger.

Good thing his hostess couldn’t see him now. Uncle Nick or no Uncle Nick, Seth would be tempted to forget honor and all that stuff in favor of caveman tactics.

He laughed silently, mockingly. The devil had nothing on his uncle when it came to fury. Uncle Nick was a stickler for proper behavior around the female sex.

Seth agreed with that sentiment. He would never hurt a woman, not intentionally. But there had been one time when he’d been tempted to take all a girl offered.

Amelia at sixteen had been almost more than his seventeen-year-old will could withstand. He could see her now as clearly as he had that night….

Seth had found her standing in the shadows outside the community center, where the Harvest Moon dance was in progress. Even in the dark, he recognized her at once.

“Amelia? What are you doing out here? You’ll freeze.” Like the hero of a novel, he took off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. The cool night air felt good to him. The dance floor was crowded and all those gyrating bodies caused the temperature to rise.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “but I’m okay. Really.” She returned his jacket.

The fast number ended and a slow love song began. On an impulse, he held out his hands. “Dance?”

She shook her head and moved more into the shadows.

The rejection intrigued rather than repelled him. “Come on. We’d better go inside before one of the chaperons finds us and sends us to the principal for skulking in the bushes.”

The attempt at humor failed.

“No, thanks,” she said. “I think I’ll go home.”

With that, she turned and started across the school parking lot, with only a thin shawl around her shoulders. He tried to recall where she lived. Oh, yes, on the other side of town in a two-story white house with her grandparents.

He’d been on a student council committee with her last year and had delivered some papers to her home. She’d disappeared in March, apparently leaving the area, but had returned a couple of weeks after the start of the new school year. At sixteen, she was nearly a year younger than he was, and a year behind him in school. Like him, she was a member of the Honor Society.

Smart. He liked that in a girl. Last year, as an honor society project, he and Amelia had researched and presented a report on poor scholastic achievement to the school authorities. He’d found her compassionate and thoughtful as well as intelligent. There was also a mystery surrounding her. She appeared and disappeared frequently from the town. When he’d tried to get to know her better, she’d become cool and distant, her manner warning him not to encroach on her privacy. Even so, there was something fragile and beguiling about her, something that had always intrigued him.

He trotted across the pavement and caught up with her. “Your dress is a knockout,” he said. “I heard Jennifer Rinquest say she’d kill for it.”

“It’s my grandmother’s,” Amelia replied in her usual serious manner. “The taffeta is woven with two different colors so that when the light hits it one way, it looks bronze, but from another angle, it’s violet.”

“Neat idea.”

“Yes.”

They were out of the parking lot and on Main Street now. At nearly midnight, there wasn’t a car or person to be seen. The shadows were deep between the streetlights, then deeper when Seth and Amelia turned onto the side street where her grandparents lived.

He wondered at her silence. Most girls tended to chatter, he’d found. He didn’t feel unwelcome around Amelia, but she didn’t try to engage his attention. She had a mysterious aura about her, as if she existed in a time and place that only she could see.

When the light breeze brought her scent to him, his body stirred with a hunger that startled him. Not that that was unusual—Uncle Nick had explained all about hormones and how it was with guys, but different for girls. However, this girl didn’t do anything to cause it…other than just be herself. A thought occurred to him. Perhaps the reason she hadn’t danced was simply that she didn’t know how.

“Uh, would you like me to teach you to dance?”

“No, thanks. I’ve had lessons,” she said in that soft tone that told him nothing. And she turned onto the sidewalk leading to the two-story Victorian.

He stayed with her. “You got a broken leg or something?”

She nimbly climbed the front steps, then turned with a frown. “No.”

He grinned. “Sorry. I just wondered why I didn’t see you on the floor at the dance.”

“No one asked.”

Her blunt honesty left him with nothing to say. When she sat in the old-fashioned swing hanging from hooks in a rafter, he joined her. “You didn’t have a date?”

She hesitated. “My grandmother arranged for a boy down the street to take me. He disappeared as soon as we got inside the gym.” She shrugged. “I didn’t mind. It was interesting to watch for a while. Then I decided it was time to come home.”

She must have stayed almost four hours, he realized. Long enough that her grandparents wouldn’t question why she’d come home early. He propped an arm behind her on the swing. His fingers touched the smooth skin of her shoulder, only partially covered by the cap sleeves of the dress. She was cold. He dropped his arm around her and pulled her close.

“You’ll catch a chill,” he scolded, sounding very much like his protective uncle.

“I never get sick.”