“I can’t,” she murmured. “I need time to think.”
“I’m afraid to let you think,” he whispered. “Just feel. This is right. You know it, and I know it. I’ve never felt this way with anyone. Just one touch, and my heart’s already pounding.”
“It isn’t right,” she protested. “At least, not for me.”
She thought of how she’d felt facing her father afterward, knowing that he knew. It had not been a good feeling. Perhaps it was hopelessly old-fashioned—and maybe the whole rest of the world had long since changed—but she hadn’t, not until today, and now she felt all mixed-up, happy and sad, both at once, as if she’d found some thing absolutely priceless but had lost something precious as well.
Tucker sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. “Is this about the confession thing again?”
Samantha squeezed her eyes closed, embarrassed about who she was and what she believed. “I know my feelings are antiquated. I’m probably the first woman you’ve ever taken to bed who thinks it’s wrong. But that’s who I am, Tucker. It’s how I believe. I not only can’t change it, but I don’t want to change it.”
“God, you sound like my mother.” When she tried to jerk away, he curled a strong hand over her nape and held her fast. “I don’t mean it as an insult. My mom’s the sweetest person I’ve ever known—until I met you.”
Samantha squeezed her eyes closed.
“And here’s another news flash for you,” he went on. “I don’t want you to change. Get that through your head: I love you just as you are. Correction. Your being who you are is why I love you. Does that make sense?”
She nodded but still felt mixed-up, because being with him that way had been the most incredible experience of her entire life. And she already wanted to experience it again. “Oh, Tucker.”
“What?” he whispered.
She turned her face slightly, hoping his lips might meet hers in a kiss that would rob her of thought and give her the excuse she needed to make love with him again. Just once. Or maybe dozens of times. She could be like a dieter on an eating binge, gobbling him up over the entire next week, and then swearing off on Saturday, promising herself and God that she’d never indulge again.
The thought was so crazy yet appealing that it made her smile.
“What?” he asked again.
“I’m just wishing I weren’t such a fuddy-duddy. I am a little embarrassed about what we did,” she confessed, “but mostly I just wish we could do it again.”
He chuckled and pressed his face against her hair. “Me, too.” He fell quiet for a moment, and then he added, “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but maybe we should abstain from this point forward. I don’t want you feeling guilty. It’s supposed to be a beautiful thing, something really precious and wonderful.”
And it had been, Samantha thought. It wasn’t his fault that she was impossibly old-fashioned, with an overactive conscience and an overdose of Catholic guilt.
Grasping her by the shoulders, he set her slightly away from him so they could look into each other’s eyes. “So here’s what we’re going to do. No more sex. We’ll go together next Saturday to talk with Father Mike.”
“That isn’t how it works, Tucker. You go to confession alone. It’s only between you, the priest, and God, no fourth party allowed.”
“How does that make sense? If we did it together, why can’t we fess up together?”
“I suppose we could talk with him together. But it wouldn’t count as a confession, and I wouldn’t receive absolution.”
“You wouldn’t receive what?”
Samantha searched his face and then burst out laughing. If Tucker Coulter became a Catholic, the Church might never be the same.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” In that moment, Samantha accepted, deep within her, that she’d been in love with him for a very long time—a few weeks that felt like a lifetime. She loved the way his eyes twinkled with mischief, the way his firm mouth tipped slowly into a grin, the way he rubbed beside his nose when he was discomfited, and most especially she loved the way he could make her laugh when she least expected it. How many men would consider going with her to confession? Not many, she felt sure. “I really don’t need you to go with me to see Father Mike. We’re friends. He’ll talk with me and try to advise me. He won’t yell or anything.”
“I’m going,” he said firmly. “It’s partly my fault you did it. And besides, that’s not all I want to talk to him about.”
“What else?”
“About the hoops I have to jump through to become a practicing Catholic and marry you.”
“Don’t put it quite that way to Father Mike. You need to feel a burning desire before he’ll even discuss your becoming a practicing Catholic.”
He dipped his head to kiss the end of her nose. “Trust me, I feel a burning desire.”
“Not that kind of desire. And it isn’t absolutely necessary for you to share my beliefs, anyway,” she informed him. “The Church is far more lenient about that nowadays. Optimally, it’s best if both people are Catholic, but it’s not—“
“I’m becoming a practicing Catholic,” he interrupted. “It’s what I want for several reasons, not the least of which is that it will make my mother extremely happy. She’ll be beside herself with joy and weep rivers of tears if one of her sons is married in the Church. My father will have to bypass handkerchiefs and go equipped with a bath towel to mop up after her.”
“I haven’t officially said yes yet, you know.”
“A small wrinkle,” he said with a grin. “You are free to marry me, right? In the eyes of the Church, I mean.”
“Yes—after my divorce, Father Mike helped me get a papal dispensation in record time. He even testified on my behalf about Steve’s complete disregard for the sacrament of marriage and his repeated infidelities, which started the first week after the wedding.”
“Back up. After your divorce, you got a what?”
Shortly after midnight Samantha’s phone rang, and the sound sent her heart clear into her throat. Coming upright from a sound sleep, she grabbed the portable.
“Yes? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, it’s just me,” the deep voice that had been whispering in her dreams said softly. “I’m sorry for waking you up, but I just got off call, and I had to hear your voice.”
Samantha smiled before her eyes came fully open. “Tucker?”
“Does some other man call at this hour just to hear your voice? If so, give me his name, and I’ll kill him.”
Her smile became a full-blown grin. “No, no one else,” she murmured. “Only you.”
“Damned good thing. I could get crazy.” Silence. “Say you love me.”
Her heart twisted, not because it would be a lie, but be cause saying the words, verbalizing the commitment, still came hard for her. “Oh, Tucker. I just—”
“It’s so easy. Just repeat after me. I.”
Her smile went all soft. “I,” she repeated softly.
“Love,” he prompted.
“Love,” she repeated.
“You,” he whispered in a gravelly voice.
“You,” she said.
“Thank you. I’ll be able to sleep now.”
She settled back against the pillow, which still smelled faintly of him, and she wished with all her heart that his big, strong arms were wrapped around her. “Where are you, in bed?”
“Don’t I wish. I just left the clinic and I’m heading home. For the first time in my career I flaked out on Isaiah and went in late, not answering my pager. That’s what you’ve done to me, lady. Nothing else matters to me but you. Isaiah was royally pissed. It’s my weekend to work. I think he had a hot Saturday night with Laura planned, and the emergency calls ruined it.”
She snuggled deeper into the blankets. “What’s she like?”
“Laura? She’s a total doll. You’ll take one look and be instant friends. It’s a rule in our family. All the ladies have
to be angels.”
“Uh-oh, my halo is a bit tarnished at the moment.”
“I’ll spit-shine it up for you. Confession on Saturday, a trip to the altar as fast as I can manage it. No more angst.”
Samantha was losing touch with her angst. Deep in her heart she found it difficult to believe that anything that happened between them could be wrong, because she loved him so much it hurt. “Have you ever been on a strict diet?”
“In high school for wrestling. I used to starve and run the stairs to get one pound under heavyweight so I could kick ass. Why?”
Samantha could remember Parker and Quincy doing that, only they’d been starving to make lightweight. “After making weight, did you ever binge?”
“I once devoured three giant pizzas in one sitting. Why?”
Samantha closed her eyes, remembering when he’d been there with her several hours ago, and she wanted. It was a yearning that went clear to the marrow of her bones. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Earlier, and how fabulous it was. And that I have a whole week before I have to go to confession. I don’t think my penance would be any worse for three or maybe even a dozen pizzas than it would be for one.”
“Penance?”
She almost giggled. “Tucker, you have a lot to learn before you can receive your First Communion. You’ll have to study for a year.”
“Bullshit. I’ll have it down in a week. I have a photo graphic memory.”
She laughed again. “Father Mike will not allow you to receive the eucharist in a week.”
“Why not? Technically I’m already a Catholic. But forget that. Let’s go back to talking about bingeing on pizza.”
Samantha sighed regretfully. “Forget I said it. There’s a huge part of me that wishes I could be less uptight and just go for it. But another part of me still feels seven years old, when there was never a gray area between right and wrong.”
“The very fact that you see what we did as a gray area tells me we can’t go there. I don’t want you to feel that way. No sex. I’m sticking by the decision. How hard can it be to abstain? Priests are celibate. If they can do it, I sure as hell can.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tucker felt confident in his ability to simply say no, the only fly in the ointment his memory of Samantha saying she was tempted to binge on sex the entire next week. He might be with her now instead of going home to a cold, empty bed. Only then what? Raised as she’d been, she’d agonize about it whenever they were apart, and he didn’t want that. It wasn’t about right or wrong or the gray areas in between, but about how she felt.
Sometimes a guy just had to be strong.
Once in the house, Tucker fed Max, freshened the dog’s water, and then belted down two whiskeys, chased with a cold shower. Hell, yes. He could do this. All it would take was keeping his gonads shriveled to the size of raisins. As he toweled off, he briefly considered jumping in his truck, driving like a maniac to Samantha’s ranch, and making love to her until dawn. Resisting the urge was one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life, for he knew that she was probably awake, too, and would undoubtedly welcome him.
Later Tucker wondered just how long it would take him to become a practicing Catholic. Weeks, months? He refused to contemplate the possibility of a year. How would he keep his hands off of her for so long? He toyed with the idea of writing himself a script for an anaphrodisiac. Not that he’d ever researched that particular family of drugs. What red-blooded American male wanted to take medication that caused erectile dysfunction?
Sleep came hard, and he soon awakened, his brain electrically charged with a new angle on the poisonings of Samantha’s horses. Maybe Steve Fisher hadn’t been anywhere near Crystal Falls when the crimes were committed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have hired it done. That was it, Tucker thought. Had to be it. Fisher could still be behind the poisonings.
It was the only theory that made sense. Nan Branson hadn’t killed those horses. Tucker felt certain of that. And judging by the little he’d seen of Carrie Dobson, the poor woman didn’t have enough self-confidence to make a decision by herself, let alone plan and commit a horrible crime. That left only the little redhead, Ronnie, who worked so few hours per week that Tucker had never seen her, or Kyle, the muscular boy toy who couldn’t convince any of the ladies to play with him. Tucker couldn’t say he liked Kyle, but his instincts told him the dude was oversexed, not vicious.
Tossing and turning, Tucker waited for dawn to brighten the sky. Then he went downstairs to make a strong pot of coffee, collected the Sunday paper from the porch, and settled at the dining room table to while away another hour before calling Ray Ballantine. The instant he unrolled the paper, his stomach took a hard downward plunge. His own face stared back at him from the front page. Next to the photo of Tucker was a grainy, dated picture of Samantha, a graduation bust shot of her in cap and gown. She looked very young and incredibly innocent. Tucker couldn’t tell if the photo had been taken when she graduated from high school or college. He knew only that he loved every line of her sweet face and would have moved mountains to keep her from seeing the headline, which read, TWO HORSES DIE OF ARSENIC POISONING. The story that followed didn’t flat-out accuse Samantha of poisoning the animals, but the reporter who’d written the piece had done a very slick job of implying that she had. It would be Tucker’s luck that she’d try to give him the boot again. Knowing she might do just that in an attempt to protect him, he loved her all the more.
It was still too early to call Ballantine, but Tucker had no such compunction about waking his brother. Isaiah answered on the third ring, his voice gruff with sleep.
“Have you seen the Sunday paper?” Tucker asked.
“Hell, no. It’s barely daylight, and it’s my day off.”
“I need you to go on call for me, Isaiah. I know it’s my turn, and I promise to make it up to you, but I need the day off. When Samantha sees this story, I have to be with her. She’s going to freak.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse than bad. I’m tempted to hire a lawyer to sue the pants off the newspaper, but Frank will probably beat me to it.”
Sounding more awake, Isaiah said, “I hate when people say it, but I told you so. Next they may turn the spotlight on you.”
After breaking the connection with his brother, Tucker went upstairs to shave and get dressed. When he returned to the kitchen half an hour later, it was nearly six thirty, late enough, in his opinion, to roust Ballantine out of bed and tell him to meet him at the Sage Creek Ranch.
Ray Ballantine held court at Samantha’s kitchen table. Four of the formal dining room chairs had to be commandeered for seating. Everyone in Samantha’s family had shown up for the meeting, and so had Jerome, who’d called in Kyle and Carrie to cover for him at the stable.
Tucker endeavored to keep the focus on Ballantine’s investigation, not the newspaper story, but that proved to be no easy task. Clint Harrigan was so furious that his tanned face looked gray, and he sat with his arms across his chest, both fists clenched. Quincy busily honed the blade of his pocketknife, his sweeps with the whetstone slow and precise, his expression murderous. Samantha kept whispering, “I can’t believe this. I just can’t. If you don’t dissociate yourself from me, Tucker, your practice will be ruined.”
“I’m not particularly worried about my practice right now,” Tucker finally told her. “I’m far more worried that the cops will take this story as a vote of public opinion and show up on your doorstep with a warrant for your arrest.”
“Why can’t Sammy just forgo the insurance money?” Zach suggested. “If she doesn’t file the claims, how can they make a charge of fraud stick?”
“Intent to defraud is almost as serious a crime as actually committing fraud,” Ballantine explained. “In order to protect your sister, we have to find out who actually poisoned the horses.” As he opened a manila file folder on top of a stack, he angled a glance at Tucker. “It had
already occurred to me that Fisher might have hired someone to do the dirty work, so I’ve checked that out. So far I’ve found no evidence that he paid anyone a large sum of money by check, and no significant sums have been withdrawn from his account.” The detective’s lip curled. “Not that he could afford to make a payoff. The man is in debt to his eyebrows and almost broke. He has only a little over three thousand in his checking, and his savings account has been closed.”
Frank swore under his breath. “How can that be? Just over a year ago, he was issued a draft from my savings account for over a million dollars.”
“Fisher managed,” Ballantine assured them. “He purchased a new truck, a horse trailer with living quarters that set him back almost three hundred grand, and a roping horse that cost the earth. There was about four hundred thousand left, but that went quickly on—if you’ll pardon the cliché—wine, women, and song. And I do mean that literally. Seven months ago he ordered five cases of Dom Pérignon, vintage 1964, at over five hundred dollars a bottle.”
“Holy shit,” Parker whispered. “What’d he do, take a bath in the stuff?”
Quincy looked up from his knife. “What the hell is Dom Pérignon?”
“Expensive champagne,” Clint supplied. “On an extremely special occasion, I might spring for one nonvintage bottle, but it’d still make my teeth ache to sign the tab.”
“Steve likes to impress the ladies,” Samantha said softly. “He used to spend a lot on microbrewery beers and expensive blends of whiskey.”
Frank rubbed a hand over his face, clearly finding it difficult to believe that his daughter’s ex-husband had blown over a million dollars of his hard-earned money. “Well, I hope he enjoyed himself. There’ll be no more where that came from, not one damned cent.”
Tucker didn’t care what Fisher had spent the million on, unless the information might clear Samantha of suspicion. “So essentially what you’re saying, Ray, is that Steve couldn’t have hired someone to perpetrate the crime.”
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