In the Dead of Night

by Linda Castillo

  He motioned toward Sara. “Yesterday, someone tried to push her off the cliffs behind the house. They almost succeeded.”

  The older woman’s gaze went to Sara, but there was no concern, no sympathy in their depths. “I don’t believe you.” Her eyes went to Nick. “Either of you.” Her gaze flicked to the jacket tied around his waist and she shook her head. “Nick, I thought you were too smart to fall for a pretty face. Then again your father evidently had the same weakness, didn’t he?”

  “That’s enough,” Nick snapped.

  Knowing the scene was only going to get worse, Sara intervened. “We have your husband’s research notes. We also have an eight-millimeter film we believe was made by Blaine Stocker.”

  “But what you really want is those claws of yours in my son, don’t you?” Eyes narrowing, her body gathering as if to pounce, she approached Sara. “Your mother was my closest friend. I loved her like a sister. I trusted her. She betrayed me by sleeping with my husband. It disgusts me that her daughter is doing the same with my son.”

  “That’s enough.” Nick stepped between the two women, but his eyes were on his mother. “You need to put your bitterness aside and listen.”

  She glared at her son. “Alex blinded Nicholas with her neediness. With her sexual charms. With that phony decency people saw when they looked at her.” Her gaze went to Sara and she shook her head. “And now her daughter is blinding you.”

  “That’s not true,” Sara defended. “All we want is to expose the truth.”

  “You want a hell of a lot more than that, you little slut.” She made a sound of disgust. “Evidently, my son is more than happy to give it to you.”

  The words struck her with the same shock and violence as the slap Laurel had delivered two days before. Emotions tightened Sara’s throat until she thought she would choke. But she held back the tears. Bit back the anger. Deflected the pain.

  Vaguely, she was aware of Nick standing a few feet away, shaking his head. Laurel reached the door, yanked it open. The sound of rain entered the bungalow, but Sara’s attention was focused on the woman staring at her as if she wanted to do bodily harm.

  “He’ll never love you, Sara. He’ll let you use him. He’ll use you, too. But he’ll never love you the way he loved Nancy and the baby.”

  The door slammed hard enough to rattle the windows. Even though Laurel had left, the tension remained. Sara’s mind reeled with all the hateful things that had been said. She could feel herself shaking, both inside and out. All the while Laurel’s parting words echoed inside her head like some terrible mantra.

  He’ll never love you the way he loved Nancy and the baby.

  Baby? What baby?

  Sara didn’t want to look at Nick. She was afraid if she did the question would be plastered all over her face. Or that the dam would break and once it did she wouldn’t be able to stop it.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said after a moment.

  She didn’t look at him. “She’s wrong about my mother.”

  “She’s wrong about a lot of things.”

  “Why does she hate me so much?” When her voice cracked, she turned away and strode to the sink, fighting tears. “Damn it.”

  She jolted when he came up behind her and set his hands on her shoulders. “Because she’s bitter. Because you remind her of your mother.”

  “My mother didn’t betray her.”

  “I know.” Gently, he turned her to face him. When she wouldn’t look at him, he put his fingers beneath her chin and raised her face. “I’m not going to make excuses for my mother. But she lost a lot that night. I think maybe she lost more than she could bear.”

  “All of us lost more than we could bear.”

  “We’re going to get through this. We’re going to find the truth. And we’re going to make sure the person responsible pays.”

  For the first time, Sara looked into his eyes. Within their depths she saw all the things she so desperately needed to see. Understanding. Compassion. The determination to find the truth no matter what obstacles were thrown in his path.

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  Dipping his head slightly, he gave her a small smile. “Don’t cry.”

  “I’m not.” It was a silly thing to say; she was definitely crying. “Damn it.”

  “You are.”

  She choked out a sound that was part sob, part laugh and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “For twenty years I’ve been told my father was a murderer. I’ve been told my mother was unfaithful to him. There were times when I hated them for that. To find out now none of that is true…I have to find the truth.”

  “I’ll help you. Laurel will eventually come to terms. Hopefully, when all of this comes out, she’ll be one step closer to healing.”

  Stepping away from him, Sara went to the sink and filled a saucepan with water for tea. “The things your mother said. About Nancy…” She put the pan on the flame then turned to face him. “Did you have a child with your wife?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The question shouldn’t have shocked him, but it did. Just hearing the words aloud was like the blade of a knife running across his chest, cutting him open, tearing out his heart. If things had turned out differently that night, he would have had a child with her.

  But Nancy had died that night. And while Nick had held her in his arms, unable to help her, watching her broken body bleed out, he’d not only lost the love of his life, but his child.

  “Nancy was two months pregnant when she died in that car accident.” The voice that croaked out the words sounded nothing like his own.

  Sara stood ten feet away, watching him. But the distance between them felt more like a mile. “Oh, Nick, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “My mother is the only person I told about the baby. Nancy had had a miscarriage just a year before. We’d decided to wait until she was through her first trimester before making the announcement.”

  “That must have been awful for you.”

  Even after a year Nick could barely bring himself to think of that night. He’d been on call and was the first responder on the scene. Seeing her battered and bleeding body had fundamentally changed him, ripped something inside him that could never be repaired. It was a nightmare he never wanted to repeat. It was the reason he’d sworn he would never love another human being, he would never love another woman. He would never put his heart and soul on the line and risk having fate chop it to bits.

  He’d always believed being alone was a far better fate than being subjected to that kind of hell. Then came Sara Douglas with her enduring love for a world that could be cruel—and a smile that could melt even the most isolated of hearts.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He didn’t. But Nick knew they would eventually have to. He couldn’t stick his head in the sand and let things continue the way they were. Maybe he’d been in denial, but there was more going on between him and Sara than he wanted to admit. He owed her the truth. When the time came for him to walk away, he wanted to be able to do it with a clear conscience.

  “Come here.” Picking up both their wineglasses, he carried them to the coffee table and sat on the sofa.

  Sara followed and sat down beside him, not touching, but close enough so that he was keenly aware of her. He could smell her floral and musk perfume….

  “You didn’t realize you were dealing with damaged goods, did you?” he asked.

  “I don’t believe you’re damaged goods.”

  He fell silent, remembering, trying to put the images running through his head into words. “I got the call at dark fall,” he began. “A motorist had seen a car go off the coast highway. They didn’t know the make of the car, so I had no idea it was Nancy. I wasn’t expecting her home for another hour or so.”

  “My God.”

  “I arrived on the scene before the paramedics. The car had gone through the guardrail and plummeted about a hundred feet in a rugged area. I didn’t think anyone
could have survived, but you never know. I’m EMT-certified so I grabbed my kit and a thermal blanket and hiked down.”

  Even now, the memory of that initial shock of recognition elicited a cold sweat on the back of his neck. “The car was badly mangled, but I recognized it immediately. Nancy had been thrown from the vehicle, and I found her about twenty yards away.”

  Vaguely, he was aware of Sara’s hand covering his. He wanted badly to take comfort in that small connection. But his mind wouldn’t let him as he relived the most horrific moment of his life all over again.

  “She was semi-conscious, bleeding, hurting.” He swallowed the lump that had formed in his chest. “I wanted to hold her, but she was too…broken. I couldn’t risk moving her without a backboard. She kept looking at me, but she couldn’t speak. Her eyes…her expression…I felt so helpless because there was nothing I could do to help her.”

  A sigh shuddered out of him. “I got on my cell, told the paramedics to hurry. I covered her with the blanket. I talked to her. I lied to her, told her she was going to be all right. But I knew she wasn’t.”

  Sara squeezed his hand. “In a situation like that, all you can do is give hope and comfort. Nick, I’m sure you did both of those things.”

  “I held her hand. It was so cold and limp in mine. It seemed to take forever for the paramedics to get there. She died before they arrived.” His voice broke and he fell silent.

  A big part of him hadn’t wanted to share this with her; he didn’t want her to know his demons. But another part of him knew it was the first step to warning her off. Already, he was feeling too much. Not only on a physical level, but emotionally as well. An emotional attachment to a woman was the one thing Nick could not allow.

  Beside him, Sara turned to face him. Nick didn’t look at her; he didn’t want her to see the emotions he knew were emblazoned on his face. But he caught the shiny wetness of tears on her cheeks.

  “You lost two people that night,” she said. “I can only imagine how horribly difficult that must have been.”

  “You’ve suffered your share of loss.”

  She was silent for a moment, then lifted her hand as if to touch him. “Yes, I have. But everyone experiences grief differently. The one thing I do know for certain is that time really is the great healer.”

  He jolted when her fingertips made contact with his jaw. “I haven’t…been with anyone since,” he whispered. “I haven’t wanted to.” He finally made eye contact with her.

  When he did, looking into the clear depths of her eyes was like seeing the light of sunrise after a long, dark and stormy night. It was as if he could breathe again after being oxygen-deprived.

  “Until now,” he whispered.

  “Being with someone…Nick, it’s a big step.”

  Turning to face her, he set both hands on either side of her face. For the span of several heartbeats, he let her beauty, both inside and outside, sink into him, warm the coldness of his soul. “That’s why I needed to tell you about Nancy and the baby. I’m not…I don’t have it together yet, Sara. I’m working on it, but there’s a big part of me missing. A big chunk that was just ripped away that day, and I haven’t been able to get it back.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered.

  “Is it okay?” he returned. “Is it okay for me to look at you and want you so badly I feel it all the way to my bones? Is it okay for me to feel that way, knowing I’m not whole? That I’m probably not capable of giving back?”

  “Or maybe you don’t realize how much you give back.”

  It was one of the kindest things anyone had ever said to him. But Nick didn’t believe it. “There’s nothing left inside me to give. I’m tapped out. Spent. Grief did that to me. One of us gets the short end of the stick.”

  “Maybe we should take it slowly.” She started to rise, but he grasped her hand and pulled her back onto the sofa.

  Suddenly, he couldn’t bear the thought of her walking away. From this moment. From him. He knew it wasn’t fair. But the need was diamond-sharp and cutting him with every beat of his heart.

  He didn’t want this precious moment in time to slip away. If Nick had learned anything in the last year, it was that the now is what counted.

  “Is this slow enough?” he asked, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  THE KISS shocked her system. Pleasure short-circuited the synapses firing in her brain. Every nerve ending in her body sizzled and snapped. All she could think was that she’d stepped out of the shallows and into the deep.

  At the age of twenty-seven, she’d been kissed by plenty of men in her lifetime. She’d had two serious, albeit tepid relationships that had ended through no fault of her own. She was no stranger to passion or the pleasures of being intimate with a man.

  But Nick’s kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced. On a physical level, he elevated the act to an art form that made every erogenous zone in her body weep for more. On an intellectual level, she understood fully the emotional risk he was taking. The fact that he was willing to put his own painful past aside to get close to her shattered the last of her reservations and tore down the protective walls she’d erected around her heart.

  He kissed her long and hard and so thoroughly she forgot to breathe. She didn’t know if it was the lack of oxygen or the rush of blood from her head to other areas of her body that made the room dip and spin. His focus was total and so intense she couldn’t catch her breath.

  They were sitting on the sofa, angled so that they were face to face. A gasp escaped her when he eased her back and came down on top of her. All the while he was kissing her as she’d never been kissed before in her life. Need such as she’d never known fired inside her, flames licking higher and higher.

  Vaguely, she was aware of thunder outside the bungalow. While the wind and rain lashed the windows, she and Nick dealt with their own storm inside.

  He deepened the kiss, and she opened to him, inviting him inside. She could feel his labored breaths against her cheek. His muscles trembling against hers. She could feel her own ragged breaths tearing from her throat.

  “I want more of you,” he said darkly. “More of this.”

  His words whispered through her brain like a sigh. But Sara was beyond answering. Beyond rational thought. The only information her brain processed at that moment was the feel of his body against hers and the insistent pressure of his mouth.

  A sigh escaped her when his hand closed over her breast. Even before she realized she was going to respond, her back arched, giving him full access. He slipped his hands beneath her shirt. With a flick of the wrist, he opened the front closure of her bra.

  Her breath left her lungs in a rush when he cupped her. She nearly came up off the sofa when he trapped her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Sara had never considered herself a sexual person. She’d always been shy and reserved, able to go months without so much as a sexual thought. Nick had changed all of that with a single kiss and a touch so powerful it made her forget who she was.

  Sara writhed beneath his ministrations. Her breasts ached. Her entire body seemed to be on fire, burning from the inside out.

  Sitting back slightly, Nick looked at her. Sara stared back at him, aware of the sweat beaded on his forehead. But it was his eyes that unnerved her, that made her want with such intensity that it verged on pain.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered and reached for her shirt.

  A protest died on her lips when he gently pulled her shirt over her head. Her bra lay open, exposing her breasts. Feeling vulnerable, Sara moved to cover herself with her arms, but Nick stopped her. “I want to see you,” he said and ducked his head.

  A cry erupted in her throat when his mouth closed over her nipple. Sensation rushed the length of her body, pooling and spreading like wildfire. Vanity forgotten, she reached for him, her fingers fumbling on the buttons of his shirt.

  “I want to see you, too,” she whispered.

  Nick obliged by ripping open his shirt. Button
s popped and fell to the floor. Sara caught a glimpse of dark hair, rounded pectoral muscles and an abdomen as hard and flat as granite. Then he was working off the shirt and pulling her to him.

  His chest pressed against hers, bringing forth another rise of arousal. She could feel it pulsing between her legs, her panties going damp.

  She hadn’t intended for the situation to go this far. Kissing was one thing. It was safe. Controlled. But having sex with Nick Tyson was going to be something else altogether.

  But Sara wasn’t going to stop. For better or for worse, she wanted this precious time with him. Wanted it more than she wanted her next breath.

  His arms went around her shoulders and back. Crushing her to him, he kissed her full on the mouth. Sara wrapped her arms around his shoulders, marveling at the hard-as-stone feel of his muscles. She kissed him back with an abandon she hadn’t known existed inside her.

  Nick pulled away and rose. Puzzled, Sara looked up at him. “Come here,” he said, extending his hand to her.

  The next thing she knew he swept her into his arms. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders. With the other she cupped his cheek and turned his face toward her for a kiss. Hugging her against him, he kissed her hard, his tongue sliding into her mouth and going deep. She could feel him trembling now and it pleased her to know she had the same profound effect on him as he did on her.

  He pushed open the bedroom door with his foot. The door swung wide and he stepped inside, not bothering to turn on the light. Midway to the bed, he let Sara slide from his arms. The instant her feet hit the floor, his hands were all over her, seeking, exploring.

  Sara felt as if she were drowning in sensation. She’d never known what it was like to want with such ferocity. Her fingers trembled violently as she worked to open his belt. When it came away she fumbled with the zipper of his jeans. He’d removed his shirt. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the dark thatch of hair and sinewy muscle. He had the most magnificent chest she’d ever laid eyes on.