She rubbed her cheeks, hoping to subdue the flush that still burned across her features. "Both, huh? Well... good. Maybe we can finish up, then. Is eight o'clock alright?" She realized that tomorrow was Sunday. "I don't want to keep you from church or anything."

"That's no problem," Jamie replied. "I wasn't planning on attending tomorrow anyway."

"Alright. See you then." Alex fled the barn quickly, knowing her composure was held together by a mere gossamer thread. She quickly headed around the side of the house, deciding to forgo the good-byes to Diana and Aaron. Jamie's mother was too swift a woman not to notice that something was up. She would think of an excuse, and apologize later.

Hopping into her truck, she muttered aloud to herself that her whole life seemed composed of apologies. Both giving and receiving. Well, she had the whole evening ahead to compose herself. Her date with Lestoil and Mr. Clean would give her plenty of time for thinking. Before tomorrow arrived, at any rate.

The little farmhouse lay silent at the base of the great mountain, hovering just beyond the grasp of twilight's cool and cunning fingers. As Alex closed up the pickup and made her way onto the porch, the eerie feeling of eyes on her back gripped her. She looked around nervously, and then chided herself for such childish willies.

The house was full of dusky shadows. She bit her lip and refused to heed the urge to flick on all the lights immediately. She moved through the living room toward the kitchen's archway. She stopped. Her heart was pounding. Why the hell was she feeling this way?

Slowly, she turned around, forcing herself to breathe in and out. Slowly. Rationally.

The wheelchair. The wheelchair was in the living room. The dark hulk of its shape, the round wheels, the arms rests, were slowly absorbed by her ever widening eyes. The woman was back.

Alex exploded for the kitchen, her fingers feeling for the light switches, missing, and then catching hold on the second try. Light flooded the kitchen and spilled through the archway into the living room. She spun around.

A golden stream of light filled the space where the wheelchair had been. She laughed in a short barking manner, although it was more a thick, choking gasp of relief.

"Idiot," she breathed, eyes still glued to the spot, drinking in the glorious, empty space. "Stupid imagination." Alex moved through the house until she'd flipped on every single light.

Waiting for Eden ~*~*~*~*~*~.

Chapter 10.

His house was draped with shadow and the kind of stillness found only in the wee hours of morning. The soft brush of nightly breezes through Jamie's open window was the only evidence of the passage of time. When the low rasp of a cricket sounded from the fields beyond his window, he restlessly turned on his side.

Jamie's eyes remained open in the darkness, for when he had earlier shut them seeking sleep, two faces had wavered hauntingly behind his lids, refusing him the option of pleasant, restful dreams.

Two women, one blonde, with pale blue eyes reflecting desolation and hopelessness, the other with brunette locks that fell in lazy curls about her shoulders, and eyes that sparkled with courage and hazel light. The eyes tell everything, he thought numbly.

Although his limbs felt thick and heavy with fatigue from the exertion of the previous hours, his thoughts turned fully and clearly to Alexandra Winters, refusing to lend him respite. Behind that front of courage and tenacity, her eyes had a haunted aura, as if she had been through much pain herself. He wondered why he was so attracted to her, and not just physically. He wanted to know her, and he wanted her to confide in him. Why?

In his mind, Jamie retraced the conversation he had had with his mother after dinner. "How did it go with Alexandra?" she had questioned with casual interest.

Jamie had merely shrugged, biting down hard against the flush that threatened to rise on his cheekbones. He had thrust away the image of Alex with her lips parted and her eyes filled with a dazed sensuality...

"Did you kiss and make up?" she prodded. "I was worried when she didn't stay for supper."

He looked at her sharply, and read the tease in her eyes. He chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much. Mouse and I are helping her out tomorrow. Go figure. She apologizes, and we end up toiling for her."

Diana laughed. "That's the way of a good, intelligent woman, son. I don't see anything wrong with that at all. That's a mark of quality."

Jamie snorted in disgust and shook his head. "Women."

"Go easy on her, Jamie," Diana admonished. "Alex needs a friend."

"You mentioned that before, Mom." He looked at his mother quizzically, narrowing his eyes. "So tell me, what's really going on with her?"

"Well.... Alex did confide in me, Jamie. I can't go into details, but let's just say she didn't have an ideal marriage."

The thought struck him dumb for a moment. He had always assumed Alex and her husband had been a perfect, yuppie pair, enjoying their wealthy life in the big city. But that would also explain her response to his kiss... the way she had melted into him. She wasn't really in mourning after all.

His jaw tightened as the implications dawned on him, and anger curled and twisted inside, snakelike. Damn her, she had let him believe that she thought highly of her husband, and had even laughed when he attempted to apologize for kissing her.

"I am thinking that it was pretty bad, Jamie," Diane continued, reading the flush on his face. "Don't be cross with her."

Breathing out slowly, his temper cooled as he contemplated another explanation. Just how much of a rotten beast could her husband have been? Had he abused her? Is that why she had run away from her city life and home to hide in the mountains?

"What did he do to her?" Jamie questioned in a low voice, keeping the tone carefully neutral.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure," Diana soothed, "but she's been through some pretty tough times. With her marriage, with her family... she has no father, either."

"He passed away?"

"No, he up and left without a word when she was only six. She never heard from him again."

"Jesus."

"Look, I already told you too much. I just want you to have a little patience with her. I can see you two are locked into some sort of weird sparring match."

"You've got that right," Jamie muttered. "Well, thanks for telling me Mom. I guess it does explain some things... and I'll keep it to myself."

His thoughts had been in a complete turmoil ever since.

The long, eerie call of a screech owl sounded outside his window, bringing the dark contours of his room back to focus. Rolling onto his back, Jamie felt his eyelids begin to droop, ever so slowly. The worries that had clung to him like a burr for years now slowly released their hold, finally sending him into the arms of sleep.

Alex awoke just before dawn. When she looked out of her window, the sky was gray and fuzzy with the promise of morning to come. When she exited the house and made her way to the barn, night had relinquished its reign, releasing waves of pastel light, like an impressionist's palette, with a myriad of small, blurry brushstrokes that culminated in one vast sea of flowing color.

She smiled as a mockingbird took up its song, one verse melding into the next without thought or pause. Alex assumed that the bird must have taken up summer residence on Eden Ranch, for she heard him nearly every morning now, as clearly effective as a rooster might have been. Chickens, hmmm. They would be a perfect addition to the ranch.

After feeding the three horses and mucking their stalls, she went through her equipment, carefully spreading the spools of high tensile wire, the insulators, pliers, and end tensioners that she and Mouse would need later.

And don't forget Jamie, she thought with a hard twinge of something in her gut. Guilt? Apprehension, maybe?

Anticipation, I believe, a voice in her head taunted laughingly, and lust perhaps, Alex-girl? Poor Richard.

"Shut up evil twin," Alex muttered. But to be honest, how long had it been since she was kissed so well by a man? So thoroughly?

Since Richard, she thought stubbornly. But that was untrue. Their earlier courtship had been full of fumbling embraces, heavy petting. She somehow remembered his hands always being rough and undisciplined. Sometimes, they were even painful. In fact, Richard had rarely kissed her at all, especially not after they had been married.

She laughed shortly, out loud. Richard was a man who went right for the goods. He'd even had the gall to tell her so, and laugh about it, as if he were proud of his selfish form of dominance.

After five years of marriage, she could count the number of orgasms he had given her on one hand. Alex took her own pleasures quietly, separately, when she was alone in their apartment with her own personal fantasies.

The rumble of a vehicle in the driveway drew her mind away from the past. She glanced at her watch, the guys had arrived half of an hour early. "I need to get a cat," she muttered to herself as she got to her feet, brushing the dust off her needs. "Men are definitely for the birds." She walked out of the barn to greet Mouse and Jamie.

"Damn. Mouse and I were hoping to catch you still in your sexy lingerie."

"Thah's not trew, Oww-lex," Mouse frowned at Jamie, and his big cheeks were pink.

"Speak for yourself," Jamie grinned.

Alex couldn't help but laugh. "Good morning to you too, guys. Actually, I'm glad you're here early. This looks way more complicated than I thought."

They bent to the task of laying out new pasture, and repairing what was still functional of the old. Jamie seemed to know exactly what he was doing, and organized tasks for she and Mouse to handle. They replaced old posts and rotting boards with freshly cut ones, and created new paddocks with high-tensile electric wire.

The day was brilliantly sunny and had warmed to seventy-five by 11:30. There was a gentle breeze that helped relieve the effects of the sun, but it was hard and strenuous work.

Jamie paused, stretching out his back. They were nearly finished. "I should take a look at that tractor in the barn. We could have used it this morning. Does it turn over at all?"

"It chugs and huffs a little bit, then dies. I really don't know how to drive it, though, even if it did start."

"You'll need to learn, living on this farm. It's not so hard at all."

"Yeah, I was thinking about just buying a new one and relieving that pitiful, old thing of its duties forever."

"That's right, I forgot. You're a woman with bottomless pockets."

Alex glared at him, resenting the jibe. "Not so bottomless, Jamie. Richard owned half of a fairly small law firm. There were... debts. Things I didn't even know about. Nothing to gloat about, really."

Elizabeth had walked away with the four-carat promise ring, a car, and a hefty down-payment on a swanky condo. She rocked back on her haunches, and looked away from Jamie's knowing gaze, picking absently at tufts of dandelion patches that had shot above the height of the recently mowed grass.

"And I sunk most of it in this place already. I've got nothing coming in... You do the math," she muttered.

"Did you work before?"

"Yes. For Richard."

Jamie tried to conceal his surprise, but it didn't matter because she still wouldn't look at him. "You're a lawyer?"

A wave of bitterness crossed her features. "Nope. A mere secretary. Tedious, mundane, run of the mill. I hated it."

The vehemence Alex acknowledged in her voice actually shocked her. All of those hours in the office, all of those days, those years. It all ran together in her head. For God's sake, she couldn't even remember thinking during those days. She went from one monotonous task to the other, as if brain dead, only her hands and feet working.

Alex shuddered involuntarily. No thoughts real in her head, other than tasks that lay ahead, and how Richard might want them done. Would he be pleased or pissed and hurtful later?

No close friends, no companionable co-workers to chat with through lunch. She ate with Richard or simply alone, and if she had a luncheon date with Janine or one of the others, it had prior approval from her husband.

And those luncheons were all fake, like they had been scripted, for they always talked of the same things - social occasions, fashions, and the latest gossip to sweep through their small crowd. Richard had controlled her life for her, and all she had done about it was smile.

"Smile Ow-lex."

Her head jerked upward, and she realized she had been staring at nothing, wide-eyed and white-faced, her heart tripping along in her chest like a frightened, bleating rabbit.

"Mouse thinks you look pretty when you smile," Jamie added with raised eyebrows.

Mouse's face turned red, and he whaled Jamie in the arm.

"Ow, Mouse!"

"Shut-op Jay-me!"

"Lighten up, Mouse. That felt like being slugged with a frozen ham." Jamie rubbed his arm. "I'm just joking with you is all."

Alex rose from her crouch upon wobbly legs, and attempted a grin. "All right boys, enough squabbling or I'll put you both in the corner." Mouse looked sheepish, Jamie merely amused.

"Well, I guess it's time to try out the fencing." Alex hurried into the barn, feeling the bubble of excitement. Bold Venture first, she decided, for he had spent the most time penned up in his stall.

He danced, light-footed from one newly trimmed hoof to the other as she led him to the pasture gate. Alex slipped his halter off in one fluid motion, and the stallion blazed joyously into his new freedom.

Three hard bucks and then he exploded into a full gallop, his tail arched and flowing behind him, a testament to his prowess and beauty. "Wow," was all she could manage.

"He can really move," Jamie murmured appreciatively.

Alex watched the stallion's muscles ripple and stretch with each stride, bunching occasionally to form a spectacular leap, arching his golden body through the air as if he had the wings of Pegasus to back him. So beautiful, and yet all she could think of was Jamie standing beside her. Close. His arm brushed her skin, ever so casually, sending goose bumps on a racing trail across the contours of her body.

She wanted to be angry about the effect that he had on her and step away, but he looked down at her then with an open, friendly smile. "You really know your horseflesh, Alex. This one's a winner for sure."

"Bee-u-tee-full," Mouse added his two cents, taking unusual care with each syllable.

"Hey, you got it right this time, Mouse," Jamie turned to the grinning man, and gave him a pat on the back. Alex watched as Mouse's features swelled with pride and adoration. She realized suddenly how much Mouse cared for Jamie. Loved him, most likely.

Had she ever had a friend that she loved and trusted implicitly? Almost, once in college, with her first roommate, Anna Weatherly. They were approaching that unique bond, that intimate connection that only two young, inexperienced women stepping out in the world for the first time can share.

But she had turned her back on Anna to follow Richard, blindly but resolutely. She didn't keep in touch, except to post the occasional remark on Facebook. She'd had no close friendships since, and no words of either praise or encouragement. So many mistakes...

Her rampant thoughts had her blinking and confused, and Jamie's words came back with a rush, clearing her head. Alex then realized how much his compliment to her expertise had affected her. His words of praise had been honestly spoken and appreciative, without the ring of derision or underlying meaning.

Her mood lightened considerably. "Lemonade, guys?"

Bold Venture had discovered the lush mounds of grass beneath his hooves, and had heartily bent to the task of devouring every blade. His long tail swished in time with his grinding, rhythmic jaws as he clipped, chewed, clipped, chewed.

"I can put the other lawnmowers out later," she muttered laughingly.

In the kitchen, she rustled up three mugs and a pitcher of lemonade. The glass quickly frosted and the ice cubes tinkled in an inviting, homey way. The kitchen was pleasantly cool, with a nice cross breeze drifting in through the open windows.

Alex hummed as she bustled around, pulling odds and ends from the fridge and cupboards, happy that she had found the time yesterday to make it to the grocery store. She made a plate of assorted lunchmeats and cheeses, and set out pickles, onions, mayo, lettuce, and a hefty loaf of bread.