BooksBarbecue
Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

She held him fast inside of her as the deck of her life listed in the sudden storm of emotions she had never sailed before. She clung to him harder as her body became a skimming craft on swelling seas. She rose and fell, bobbed and turned and wheeled and heeled. She was a ship running before the wind of love; she was its sails; he was its keel. She was a bird; he was its wings.

Then suddenly she was the wind itself, and scudding clouds filled up with thunder and with the lightning he was charging up in her, and charging up in her. Until she could contain it no longer. Like a storm sky she split, the thunder crashed out of her and the burst of her orgasm shook the world.

They came crashing to release together, both riven to the core. Then the tempest passed, easing, easing at last to let their hearts clear and quiet in the fading wind, quieted to deep-breathing in a sleepy peace in each other’s arms.

Elizabeth Carr woke later and stirred against Peter Hubbard. He tightened his hold on her warm flesh. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

He rubbed his eyes like someone coming out of a dream. He looked at her with eyes that could not believe Elizabeth Carr was lying beside him. He stated, “You have to go in to Bonnie.”

“No.” She lifted herself on an elbow. “She guesses where I am, Peter. She knows how I’ve felt about you.” Sudden tears spilled out. “Poor Bonnie. She was truly falling in love with Craig Soaras, I know.”

“I guessed,” he nodded slowly.

It came to Elizabeth Carr in that moment how right it was for her to have come to Peter Hubbard’s bed. Bonnie had lost the lifetime of happiness she might have known—lost it so suddenly, so meaninglessly, so uselessly.

Elizabeth counted the blessings of her own discovered love, not stolen like Bonnie’s.

It came to Elizabeth Carr that what she felt was what men and women in wartime had known. With death all around, you grasp what you can of life. She and Peter had been in a war together; they could have been killed as wantonly as Wanda Lindstrom, as Craig Soaras, she could as easily be as bereaved as Bonnie. She understood what had given her the courage to cross the hall.

But it was not a time for thinking. Peter was pulling her nakedness to his own ready body, wonderfully importunate again.

3

THREE