The Judge and the Gypsy by Sandra Chastain

Theconversation was getting too serious. She opened her pillowcase and took out a cloth, her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bar of soap.
    “I may not have a hot shower, but I intend to take a bath, Crusader.”
    “Do you have any idea how cold that water is?”
    “I’ve been cold and wet before,” she answered, giving him a long look. “Why don’t you build up the fire while I’m gone?”
    Savannah sat down on a limb near the stream while she untied her boots and pulled off her socks, massaging her tired feet. Keeping an ear tuned to their campsite, she unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, and hung it on a bush. She unzipped her jeans and stepped out of them.
    The woods were silent.
    Giving a small prayer that there were no snakes lurking nearby, she stepped into the icy water. “Brrrrr!” Quickly she brushed her teeth and laid the brush and tube on the bank. Gritting her teeth in determination, she rinsed her socks and underwear, then began to soap herself. Just when she was certain she was half frozen, she heard a splash behind her and felt herself being caught in her crusader’s arms.
    “You’re going to catch pneumonia or turn into an ice sculpture,” he said in a voice that was hoarse with emotion. He tightened his arms around her and lifted her legs around his waist.
    “Would that be so bad?”
    “I’d probably come back here and sit in this stream until I was as frozen as you,” he said. “Then we could melt together.”
    Their teeth chattered both from the cold and desireas they rinsed the soap from their bodies. Rasch lifted her in his arms and strode back to the fire, blazing now in its circle of rocks. “Stand here,” he said as he pulled a towel from his pack and began to dry her.
    By the time they’d dried each other, they were warmed by the touch of hands and fabric, interspersed with kisses that heated their blood and fired their nerve endings with anticipation. When Rasch deposited Savannah on the sleeping bag, she didn’t need the bag zipped to protect her from the cold. The North Georgia Mountains had become the Garden of Eden and they were man and woman at their most primitive and elemental.
    “Unbraid your hair,” he whispered. “I like you free and wild.”
    “Free and wild?” she repeated. “I wonder if anyone can be free and wild.…” She sat up and began to thread her fingertips through her plait, feathering her hair into a mass of luxuriant waves. The firelight reflected in the little beads of water still hanging in the dark hair. She looked as though she were wearing a crown of flames.
    “You are free and wild, Gypsy. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
    “Only here, Crusader, in the wilderness. If we were back in the civilized world, there would be rules to follow and laws that would crush me.”
    There was a sadness in her voice that brought Rasch to a sitting position. He drew Savannah back to the mat and pulled the bag over them. “Never,” he said. “I’d protect you—always.”
    Then he kissed her, and she returned his kiss in warmth and sadness.
No, my Crusader. You’re theone I have to be protected from. Even you can’t go back and do things over. You can never make things right for me. You’ve already hurt me too much
.
    But she forgot her misgivings as he caught her up in the power of his touch. Perhaps there’d come a time when their lovemaking would be gentle and sweet, but now it seemed that each time they loved, their passion intensified. The heat was more searing, the ecstasy more extreme, the release more vivid.
    “Savannah,” he whispered, “I never expected to find anyone like you. You’ve filled a void in my life that I didn’t know existed.”
    Lying in his arms, Savannah looked up at the night sky. The moment had come. She choked back panic and regret, trying to speak in a normal voice. “Horatio, you’re quite a surprise to me too.”
    “Savannah, nobody has called me Horatio since my mother died. My friends call