A Rainbow in Paradise Read online

  "I hope you don't mind if I stay awhile," he said.

  She stared at the brushes, then answered simply, "Stay as long as you like." Maybe this afternoon wasn't destined to be so bad after all!

  * * * * *

  Logan stretched, reaching his brush full of dusty rose paint toward the ceiling. They'd finished the ceiling first. Then, for the past couple of hours, he had taken the high road, cutting along the edge of the white ceiling, then painting all the higher parts of the walls while Eden took the lower half. His height gave him the advantage there, and it was easier for her not to stretch so hard, or risk balancing on a chair.

  He glanced toward her, hoping he hadn't offended her by taking off his shirt. He'd asked first, of course, and though she'd said it was all right, he noticed that she had colored a little and averted her eyes. Clearly she was as uncomfortable as he was. I should have thought of a shirt, he told himself as he finished the back wall.

  Conversation hadn't exactly been sparkling. Perhaps they were both intimidated by the subject they knew they'd have to address sooner or later, or maybe, as he'd suspected from the beginning, they really had little in common—besides that electric rush that seemed to send sparks flying whenever they got within three feet, or spoke on the phone, or...

  Logan stifled a sigh. He'd never experienced anything like the magnetic power of their mutual attraction. Now, if they could just learn to speak. So far their talk had been pretty much limited to "Pass the paint" and "There's a spot," though she had thanked him several times for coming.

  He smiled to himself. He was glad he had come. He was glad to spend some time near Eden, even if he wasn't going to be able to stay. Every once in a while he even got close enough to catch that fresh, clean scent that reminded him of a desert evening, and sometimes she flashed him a look of electric blue that hit him like a lightning bolt and sent tremors running all through him. Yes, it was worth a little hard labor to share a few more of those looks, a little more time just basking in her presence.

  He set his jaw. The painful subject they couldn't avoid would come up sooner or later. For now, it was worth whatever it took just to smile and enjoy a few moments in paradise.

  * * * * *

  Eden sneaked another surreptitious glance at the attractive man working beside her. It always embarrassed her when he looked her way and found her studying him and she never turned away without coloring.

  To make matters worse, she could think of nothing to say to the man beyond "Thanks for helping" and "Please pass the paint." She wondered why she was always so tongue-tied in his presence. Maybe she was just trying to avoid asking him what he had wanted to talk to her about, or maybe, as she'd suspected since the wedding, they really didn't have much more in common than the adrenaline rush that darted like lightning whenever they stood in the same room.

  She shook her head. It doesn't matter, she told herself, coming to the realization she'd been working on for the last couple of hours. It doesn't matter why he's here or what he has to say. For now, it's enough that he's here, working beside you, letting you watch him. Stop fussing about the future, Eden. Just relax and enjoy him. It was such good advice, she decided to take it.

  * * * * *

  "I think that's it," Logan said. He put down his paint pad and stretched his stiff muscles, not noticing the breathless reaction he drew from the woman beside him.

  Eden's mouth went dry and she swallowed hard before she spoke. "I think you're right," she answered huskily. With Logan's help, they'd finished the whole job, including the woodwork, in record time. "I can't thank you enough for coming."

  "My pleasure," he answered, surprised to realize it was. "Let me help you clean up in here and put the paint away," he offered, "then maybe we can talk over dinner."

  "Sure, that'll be fine."

  They started by putting the paint away, carefully capping each can, and then Logan went to a backyard faucet to wash clean all the pads, rollers, and brushes so they'd be ready to use again when Eden needed them. Meanwhile she gathered up paint-covered newspapers, stuffing them into trash bags. Before long they stood in a clean, freshly painted living room, admiring their handiwork.

  "It looks great, Logan. Thanks again for all your help."

  "You're welcome again," he answered easily, standing near enough to catch her scent. Even mixed with the odor of paint, she still smelled delicious.

  "Listen," she said, "about dinner. I don't have much in the house, but if you don't mind taking potluck, I think I can throw together a simple pasta dish and a green salad."

  "I don't want you to feel you have to cook for me," he began. "You've worked hard all day. Let me take you out for something."

  "That would hardly be fair, since lunch was your treat. Let me whip up something here. I insist."

  He hadn't come here to argue with the lady. "In that case, pasta sounds great," he answered, "but I'm pretty dirty to sit down to a dinner. Do you have a place where I can clean up?"

  She thought of the clogged bathroom drain. "I'm having some plumbing work done on the main bath," she answered. "If you don't mind using the shower off the bedroom?"

  "No, that's fine," Logan answered, so she showed him down the hall to the room where she was sleeping, glad she'd made her bed and tidied up that morning. "The shower's right in here and clean towels are over there."

  "No problem," he answered, but the doorway was so narrow that their bodies touched as they brushed past each other. The brief contact left Eden nearly gasping.

  Towel in hand, she fled from the bathroom—face flaming—and grabbed a clean cotton shirt from her closet on her way out and shut the bedroom door tightly behind her. She did a cursory job of washing up at the kitchen sink and changed into the clean shirt. Then went about the business of starting water to boil, cutting up a salad, and regaining her waning composure. By the time Logan came out—crisply clean, smelling deliciously of fresh soap and healthy man—she had warmed some bottled spaghetti sauce, jazzed it up with a few things from her cupboards, and started the frozen ravioli boiling. "Dinner'll be ready soon," she said, barely trusting herself to look at him. "You can pour some ice water if you like."

  Logan sat at the table and poured for each of them while Eden blanched the pasta and set the meal on the table. For a time, they ate quietly. Then Logan spoke, his tone casual. "Eden? I've been thinking about us."

  She tried not to choke on her ravioli. "Is there an us to think about?"

  "Sarah tells me your business is in Phoenix."

  "Right. Day care. The Old Woman's Shoe. You knew that."

  "Right," he agreed. "And you're going back there in a few weeks, as soon as you put this house on the market, right?"

  "Right again."

  "I've been wondering how you'd feel if we spent some time together for the next few weeks, just while you're in the area."

  Eden just looked at him, wondering if she was hearing him correctly.

  He stumbled over the next words. "I know, I'm the one who said maybe we shouldn't see each other—"

  "I remember that part. You talked about some kind of commitment."

  "Yes, but I'm not talking about any kind of commitments now, not between us, I mean. I'm talking about two grown-ups who enjoy each other's company just sharing some time together. No strings."

  She licked her lips, put her fork down. Something in the way he said it piqued her ire. "Did you think I had something else in mind?"

  Now it was his face that darkened with embarrassment. "No, it isn't that. I just didn't want there to be any misunderstandings between us—"

  "So, gentleman that you are, you decided to protect me by setting the record straight right from the start, is that it?"

  He couldn't have missed her sarcasm. "Uh, something like that, I guess."

  Eden was on a roll. "But you hesitate to spend time with me because of some other commitment you've made that you don't want to tell me about."

  "I... I guess you could say that."

  "
And yet you want me to agree to spend time with you, anyway? No strings attached?"

  He felt the heat in his face. She was holding up a mirror to him and what he saw shamed him. "Uh, well, yeah. I guess."

  "Logan, do you think that's wise?" She wasn't being sarcastic anymore, or evenly viciously sardonic. He could tell from the intensity in her expression that she was absolutely serious, that in trying to avoid hurting her he had hurt her worse than he'd ever imagined.

  Her searching honestly demanded no less from him. "I can't seem to be wise when I'm around you, Eden."

  She made a sharp, high sound then, a quick burst that might have been a laugh or a sob. "And you still want to spend time around me?"

  "More every time I'm with you."

  She drew a long, slow breath while she studied her fingernails, picking at the paint that still speckled them. "It seems to me," she said after a while, "that we've come to a bit of an impasse."

  They sat in the kitchen—Eden staring at her hands, Logan watching the floor. The kitchen wall clock sounded thud, thud, thud—each slow beat clicking off another second. There were many thuds before Logan spoke again.

  "It seems to me," he said carefully, "that as long as we both understand it isn't going to go anywhere..." The sentence trailed away.

  "You're setting ground rules," she said, getting his drift.

  "I guess you can call it that."

  "Ground rules," she repeated, as if adjusting to the thought. She looked up. "What you are telling me is..." She paused, coming to terms with all she had learned, piecing the bits together. "You have another commitment that will keep us from ever becoming serious about each other, so you want me to understand from the outset that you will never marry me and I shouldn't expect that, but you want to spend time with me while I'm here." She looked up. "Am I getting this so far?"

  Logan had been listening, his eyes dropping as she spoke. "It sounds pretty awful when you boil it down like that," he said, "but yes, I guess that's what I'm trying to say."

  "I didn't come up here looking for a husband," Eden began, and she saw Logan twitch as she said it. "But I think I might enjoy spending some time with you, too. What did you have in mind?"

  "My time is fairly free just now with the goat project going so smoothly. Maybe I can help you out around here some weekdays and free you to take time off on evenings and weekends to spend with me, if you'd like."

  "And when we're together? What will we do?"

  "There are some things I'd like to show you out on the rez. We could make a day trip every now and then, maybe have an occasional picnic, and just enjoy some time together before you have to go back to your life in Phoenix."

  "That's it?" she asked, feeling a touch bemused.

  He shrugged. "That's it."

  “This isn’t some kind of ‘friends with benefits’ proposition?”

  He blanched. The poor man actually blanched. “No. Oh no! Nothing like that. I respect you too much even to think that…not to mention Chris would kill me. I’m just talking about hanging out, sharing some time together, maybe some kisses--if we both want them.”

  "Logan, if that's all you had in mind, why has it been so difficult to say it? And why were you so sure we shouldn't see each other again?"

  Because I'm afraid a few weeks in paradise will spoil me for the life I've always planned to live. Because I'm afraid of you, of the magical power you have over me. He dropped his eyes when he said, "I always seem to be tongue-tied around you, Eden."

  She made another quick sound then, but this time he was almost sure it was a laugh. "Yes, I certainly know how that feels. I'm not exactly Miss Glib when I'm with you."

  He smiled. "So I guess we'll spend lots of quiet time around each other. What do you think?"

  This time Eden did laugh, and then she drew a deep breath. It sounds like playing with fire in a dynamite factory. "I think that sounds like fun."

  "Great, then. Since tomorrow is Saturday, would you like to go up to Many Farms? Meet our goats?"

  She smiled at that. "I'd love to, and thanks to your help, I'm ahead of schedule on the painting. Tomorrow sounds good."

  "Can we start early? Say, six-thirty?"

  That's inhumane! I'll have to be up at five! "Sure. I'll be ready."

  He stood, crossed the distance that separated them, and laid his hand on her shoulder. The warmth of his touch shot through her, permeating right to the bottoms of her feet and the depths of her thoughts. "Eden, are you okay with this?"

  She stood. Okay? I'm confused and frustrated and a little hurt, but... "Yes, I'm fine."

  He held her by both shoulders. "I'm glad," Logan said, and the power between them whirled like a vortex, sucking all the air from the room. "I will enjoy spending some time with you."

  "I'll enjoy it, too," she answered breathlessly. Right up until I drive away from here and leave you. She looked into his eyes, smiling a warm invitation.

  The kiss, though expected, still caught her by surprise. She had rationalized that first kiss, assured herself it was only the newness of touching Logan that had moved her so deeply. She'd have bet money that she couldn't be moved like that again. She'd have lost.

  When he finally drew away, she clung to him, fearful that if he let her go, she might simply crumple to the floor.... "Logan?"

  He took his hands away; she instantly felt the loss. "Yes?"

  "You know I wouldn't ask you to stop if I didn't like it so much."

  He smiled, a wry look. "I know," he said. "Me, too." He kissed his index finger, then placed it on the tip of her nose. "See you tomorrow."

  She smiled back. "Right. Bright and early."

  Chapter Four

  Well, it's early, but I'll be darned if it's bright. Then again, neither am I. Eden almost grumbled aloud as she faced the bathroom mirror, cringing at the red eyes and bloated face that were reflected back at her. What with the incessant dreams of Logan and the hours of wakefulness mixed in, she hadn't had much of a night. Now it was going to take some fine alchemy to get herself into a condition that wouldn't send people running in panic if they looked at her, and to accomplish that before Logan got here? She looked at the clock on the bathroom wall, and groaned.

  Carefully, lest she break something while still in this fragile-as-glass morning mood, she began to prepare. She had chosen blue jeans and a comfortable, striped "big shirt" with short sleeves. These she had laid out, together with a clean pair of cotton socks and her sneakers, on the chair beside the bed before she'd retired last night. In case the day grew cool or clouded over, she had selected a sweatshirt with the ASU Sun Devils logo. Then, because she was heading out onto the desert, she had packed a second pair of shoes, two extra pairs of socks, a canteen of water, and several small items she might need if she were stranded—toothbrush and toothpaste, a hairbrush, a small package of energy bars—into an old book pack she had found in the closet of her former bedroom, left over from her high school days. The backpack and sweatshirt she now set in the hallway by the front door. Then she hurried to shower and scrub, brush and groom, eat a small breakfast, and make up her face.

  Years of hurry-up practice paid off for her this morning, and she was feeling more or less put together by the time Logan knocked, not even so fragile anymore.

  "Hi," he said as she opened the door.

  "Hi yourself," she answered.

  "Ready?"

  "Ready." She picked up her sweatshirt and backpack, locked the front door behind her, tucking the key into the pack's outside pocket, and followed Logan to the truck.

  "I apologize for the early hour," he offered as he held the door for her.

  "No need," she said, silently congratulating herself that he probably couldn't even tell she was definitely not a morning person. "It's pretty out this morning, isn't it?"

  "Umm," he answered. She assumed it was an affirmative. "We're seeing the White Dawn now."

  "White Dawn?"

  So he told her the story of how Changing Woman, the first
woman that ever was, who bore all the human race, had married Sun and taken him to live with her in her hogan. Then, seeing that her sister, Turquoise Woman, who lived at the other side of the world, was alone and lonely, Changing Woman had encouraged her husband to marry her sister as well. Every day, Sun made the journey across the sky from the home of Changing Woman to the home of his second wife.

  "As he goes out," Logan finished, "he puts on his gray fox fur to protect him from the morning chill. Later, when he is farther on his journey and the day is warmer, he puts on a yellow fur and brings the Yellow Dawn."

  "That's a charming story," Eden said, looking around her. "I think he's getting ready to change furs about now."

  "Any moment now," Logan answered. "Look to the east. The color is beginning to spread."

  It was indeed, the pale, pastel colors of White Dawn growing richer as the sun rose nearer the horizon, soft mauve warming to rich coral, buttery yellow melting into liquid golden light.

  "Ah, there he is," Logan said as the sun crested the horizon. Then he began to speak, soft Navajo words that fell in a chanting pattern.

  "What is that you're saying?" Eden asked.

  "House made of pollen, house made of dawn, house made of morning light," Logan quoted, translating into English. "It's the beginning of a chant that Navajo children learn early."

  "Like a prayer to the sun?"

  "Something like that. It's part of a longer ceremony." He turned back to the road.

  "Is it part of the Beautyway?" she asked.

  Logan's eyes widened. "You know the Beautyway?"

  "Oh, no! I don't pretend to know it. It takes days and days to perform it correctly, yes?"

  "Yes, many days," Logan agreed. "I guess I'm just surprised that you'd know anything about it all."

  "I read a lot," Eden answered, "and I've been interested in the ceremonies that were native to this land ever since I was a little child."

  "I'm impressed."

  "So am I," she answered. "Some of the ceremonies are filled with fine poetry, beautiful lines, inspiring thoughts."