by Nora Roberts
“That’s right, that’s right, I want you to come around now. Slow. A few nice close-ups of that pretty face. The eyes are the best. They always are.”
He grew hard as they opened, dulled with pain and confusion. “Beautiful, just beautiful. Look here, look right here now. That’s the way, baby. Focus.”
Delighted, he captured understanding and fear. He set the camera down as she began to stir. Her movement would blur the shot, and he didn’t have any backup film of faster speed. Still smiling, he picked up the gun he’d laid on his neatly folded jeans. And showed it to her.
“Now, I don’t want you to move. I want you to stay still, really still, and do everything I tell you. The last thing I want to do is use this. Now you understand that, don’t you?”
Tears began to swim in her eyes, then leak out. But she nodded. Terror bubbled in her brain, and though she tried to remain motionless, shudders racked her.
“I’m just going to take your picture. We’re having a photo shoot. You’re not afraid of having your picture taken, a pretty woman like you.”
He exchanged gun for camera and smiled winningly. “Now here’s what I want you to do. Bend your knees. Come on now, that’s the way, and move them over to your left side. You’ve got a lovely body. Why don’t we show it off to its best advantage?”
She did what he asked, her eyes wheeling over to stare at the gun. The chrome glinted and shone. He just wanted pictures, she told herself, as her breath hitched and shuddered. He would leave her alone then. He’d go away. He wouldn’t hurt her.
Terror bulged in her eyes, turned her skin milky white and had him throbbing viciously. His hands began to tremble, signaling him that he could no longer wait for the next stage.
His heart thudded in his head as he carefully set his camera down on his shirt. Very gently he put a hand on her throat and looked deeply into her eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured. “And you’re helpless. You know that, don’t you? There’s nothing you can do. I’m in control. I have all the power. Don’t I?”
She jerked her head down in a nod, small sobs muffling against the silk. When his hand closed over her breast and squeezed, she moaned out pleas and tossed her head wildly. Her heels dug into the sand as she tried to escape.
He straddled her. “It won’t do you any good.” He shuddered as she bucked and twisted under him. “The more fight you put up, the better I like it. Try to scream.” He squeezed her breasts again, then bent down to bite at them. “Scream, goddamn it. Scream.”
A harsh keening sound ripped out of her, burned her throat. Desperate, she fought against the gag, struggled to use her teeth, her tongue, her lips to drag it aside.
He pried her thighs apart, deliberately bruising the flesh. And thought of Jo as he raped her. Thought of Jo Ellen’s long legs. Jo Ellen’s sexy mouth. Jo Ellen’s heavy-lidded blue eyes, while he pounded himself with sweaty violence into her substitute.
The orgasm was towering, brought tears of surprise and triumph to his eyes. So much better than the last one, he realized, and absently closed a hand over her throat, pressing down only until she stopped fighting.
He’d chosen well this time, he thought, as the climax eased off into sweetness. He’d found his practice angel. The breeze cooled his damp skin when he rose for the camera.
He remembered how the process had been outlined in his journal and reminded himself not merely to duplicate but to improve.
“I may rape you again, I may not.” He smiled, attractive creases forming around his mouth and eyes. “I may hurt you, I may not. It all depends on how you behave. Now you just lie there, angel, and think about that.”
Satisfied that she was quiescent for a while, he changed lenses. Her pupils were enormous black moons with only a sliver of pale brown encircling them, her breathing was short and shallow. He whistled contentedly as he loaded fresh film. He shot the entire roll before he raped her a second time.
And he’d decided to hurt her. After all, the choice, the mood, the control were all completely in his hands.
She stopped fighting him. In all but a physical sense she’d stopped being there. Her body was numb, belonged to someone else. In her mind she was safe, with Tom, sitting together on the patio of their pretty new house on Peach Blossom Lane.
She barely felt him remove the gag. She managed a quiet sob, made a pitiful effort to draw in breath enough to scream.
“You know it’s too late for that.” He said it gently, almost lovingly, as he wound the scarf around her throat. “You’ll be my angel now.”
He tightened the scarf, slowly, wanting to draw out the moment. He watched her mouth open, struggle to suck in air. Her heels drummed on the sand, her body jerked.
His breath became labored, the power flooding him, screaming in his head, racing through his blood. He lost track of the times he stopped, let her claw back to consciousness before he took her to the brink again. He would rise, aim the camera again. Not just one decisive moment, he thought. But many. The fear of death, the acceptance, the flicker of hope as life pumped back. The surrender when it blinked out again.
Oh, he regretted the lack of a tripod and remote.
Finally his system roared past control and he finished it.
Gasping, he murmured endearments, kissed her gratefully. She had shown him a new level, this unexpected angel that fate had tossed at his feet. It had been meant to be, of course. He understood that now. He’d had more to learn before he met his destiny with Jo. So much more to learn.
He removed the scarf, folded it, and laid it reverently over the gun. He took time to pose her, adjusting her hands after he’d freed them. The welts on the wrists troubled him a little until he slid her hands under her head like a pillow.
He thought he would title this one Gift of an Angel.
He dressed, then bundled her clothes. The marsh was too far, he decided. Whatever the gators and other predators had left of Ginny was buried deep there. He didn’t have time for the hike, or energy for the labor.
There were conveniently deep spots in the river, however, and that would do well enough. He would take her to her final resting place, weigh her body down so that it would rest on the slippery bottom.
And then, he decided with a wide yawn, he’d call it a night.
TWENTY-TWO
WHEN Giff slipped out of Lexy’s room and down the back steps, the sky was pearled with dawn. He’d meant to be out of the house and on his way before sunup. But then, he thought with a lazy smile, Lexy had a way of persuading a man to tarry.
She’d needed him. First to work off her mad at Brian, then to tell him about her sister’s troubles. They could talk about things like that, and all manner of other things, tucked in her room, their voices hushed with secrets.
That ease of talking, Giff mused, was just one of the advantages of being in love with someone you’d known since childhood.
Then there was the electric jolt, the unexpected sizzle of surprise, as you got to know that very familiar person on other, more intimate levels. Giff puffed out a breath as he reached for the door. It sure wasn’t any hardship to study Lexy Hathaway on those other levels. The way she’d looked in that little silk nightie she’d bought in Savannah had been enough to make a strong man sink to his knees and praise God for coming up with the brilliant notion of creating Eve.
Getting her out of that sheer little concoction hadn’t been a worrisome task either. In fact, he decided that when he took her to Savannah on Saturday he’d buy her another one, just so he could . . .
The erotic image of Lexy in buttermilk silk fled as he found himself faced with her father. It was a toss-up as to which one of them was more disconcerted, Lexy’s lover, with his hair still tumbled from sex and sleep, or Lexy’s father, with a bowl of cornflakes in his hand.
Both cleared their throats.
“Mr. Hathaway.”
“Giff.”
“I . . . ah . . . I was . . .”
“That plumbing need seei
ng to again upstairs?”
It was an out, offered as desperately as it was nearly taken. But Giff straightened his shoulders, told himself not to take the coward’s way, and met Sam’s eyes directly. “No, sir.”
Miserably uneasy, Sam set his bowl down and dumped milk onto the cereal. “Well, then,” was all he could think to say.
“Mr. Hathaway, I don’t want you to think I’m sneaking out of your house.” Which of course, Giff admitted, was exactly what he was doing.
“You’ve been running tame in Sanctuary since you could walk.” Leave it alone, boy, Sam prayed. Leave it lie and move along. “You’re welcome to come and go as you please, just like you ever were.”
“I’ve been walking a lot of years now, Mr. Hathaway. And for most of them I’ve been ... I figure you know how I feel about Lexy. How I always have.”
Damn cereal was going to get soggy, Sam thought with regret. “I guess you didn’t grow out of it like most thought you would.”
“No, sir. I’d say it’s more I grew into it. I love her, Mr. Hathaway. My feelings for her are long-standing and steady. You’ve known me and my family all my life. I’m not feckless or foolish. I’ve got some savings put by. I can make a good living with my hands and my back.”
“I don’t doubt it.” But Sam frowned. Maybe he’d barely sipped through his first cup of coffee, but his mind was clear enough to catch the drift. “Giff, if you’re asking me for permission to . . . call on my daughter, seems to me you’ve already opened that particular door, walked in, and made yourself to home.”
Giff flushed and hoped his swallow wasn’t audible. “Yes, sir, I can’t deny the truth of that. But it’s not that particular door I’m speaking of, Mr. Hathaway.”
“Oh.” Sam opened a drawer for a spoon, hoping Giff would take the hint and mosey on before things got any stickier. Then he put the spoon down with a clatter and stared. “Sweet Jesus, boy, you’re not talking about marrying her?”
Giff’s jaw set, his eyes glinted. “I’m going to marry her, Mr. Hathaway. I’d like to have your blessing over it, but either way, I’m having her.”
Sam shook his head, rubbed his eyes. Life just flat refused to be simple, he reflected. A man went along, minding his own business, wanting nothing more than for other people to mind theirs in return, but life just kept throwing tacks under your bare feet.
“Boy, you want to take her on, I’m not going to stand in your way. Couldn’t anyhow, even if I planted my boots in concrete. The two of you are of age and ought to have the sense to know your own minds.” He dropped his hands. “But I’ve got to say, Giff, as I’ve always been fond of you, I think you’re taking on a sack of trouble there. You’ll be lucky to get one moment’s peace from the time you say ‘I do’ till you take your last breath.”
“Peace isn’t a priority of mine.”
“She’ll run through every penny you’ve put by and won’t have a clue where she spent it.”
“She’s not near as foolish as you think. And I can always make more money.”
“I’m not going to waste my breath talking you out of something you’ve got your mind set on.”
“I’m good for her.”
“No question about it. Fact is, you might be the making of her.” Resigned to it, Sam offered a hand. “I’ll wish you luck.”
Sam watched Giff go off with a spring in his step. He didn’t doubt the boy was in love, and if he let himself he could remember what it was like to feel that light in the head, that edgy in the gut. That hot in the blood.
Sam settled in the breakfast nook with his second cup of coffee and his soggy cereal and watched the sky lighten to a bold summer blue. He’d been just as dazed and dazzled by Annabelle as Giff was now with Lexy. It had only taken one look for his heart to jolt straight out of his chest and fall at her feet.
Christ, they’d been young. He was barely eighteen that summer, coming to the island to work on his uncle’s shrimp boat. Casting nets, sweating under a merciless sun until his hands were raw and his back a misery.
He enjoyed every second of it.
He fell in love with the island, first glance. The hazy greens, the pockets of solitude, the surprises around every bend of the river or road.
Then he saw Belle Pendleton walking along the beach, gathering shells at sunset. Long golden legs, willowy body, the generous fall of waving red hair. Eyes as clear as water and blue as summer.
The sight of her hazed his vision and closed his throat.
He smelled of shrimp and sweat and engine grease. He wanted a quick swim through the waves to loosen the muscles the day’s work had aching. But she smiled at him and, holding a pink-lined conch shell, began to talk to him.
He was tongue-tied and terrified. He’d always been intimidated by females, but this vision who had already captured his heart with one smile left him grunting out responses like an ill-mannered ape. He never knew how he’d managed to stutter out an invitation to take a walk the next evening.
Years later, when he asked her why she’d said yes, she just laughed.
You were so handsome, Sam. So serious and stern and sweet. And you were the first boy—and the last man—to make my heart skip a beat.
She’d meant it. Then, Sam thought. After he had worked enough, saved enough money to satisfy him, he’d gone to her father to ask permission for her hand. A great deal more formal that had been, Sam mused, sipping his coffee, than the meeting just now with Giff. There’d been no sneaking out of Annabelle’s bedroom at dawn either. Though there had been stolen afternoons in the forest.
Even when a man’s blood had been cool for years, he remembered what it was like to have it run hot. For the first few years that Annabelle was gone, his blood had heated from time to time. He’d taken care of that in Savannah.
It hadn’t shamed him to pay for sex. A professional woman didn’t require conversation or wooing. She simply transacted business. It had been some time since he’d required that particular service, though. And since AIDS and other potential horrors of impersonal sex scared him, Sam was relieved to have weaned himself away from it.
Everything he needed was on the island. He’d found the peace that young Giff claimed not to want.
Sam sat back to enjoy the rest of his coffee in the quiet. He had to struggle with a hard twinge of irritation when the door opened and Jo walked in. The fact that she hesitated when she saw him and a slight flicker of annoyance moved over her face both shamed and amused him.
Peas in a pod, he decided, who don’t much care to share the pod.
“Good morning.” Damn it, all she’d wanted was a quick slug of coffee before she went out to work. Not just wander or brood, but work. She’d awakened for the first time in weeks refreshed and focused, and she didn’t want to waste it.
“Clear morning,” Sam said. “Thunderstorms and strong winds by evening, though.”
“I suppose.” She opened a cupboard.
Silence stretched between them, long and complete. The trickle of coffee as Jo poured it from pot to cup was loud as a waterfall. Sam shifted, his khakis hissing against the polished wood of the bench.
“Kate told me ... she told me.”
“I imagined she would.”
“Um. You’re feeling some better now.”
“I’m feeling a great deal better.”
“And the police, they’re doing what they can do.”
“Yes, what they can.”
“I was thinking about it. It seems to me you should stay here for the next little while. Until it’s settled and done, you shouldn’t plan on going back to Charlotte and traveling like you do.”
“I’d planned to stay, work here, for the next few weeks anyway.”
“You should stay here, Jo Ellen, until it’s settled and done.”
Surprised at the firm tone, as close to an order as she could remember receiving from him since childhood, she turned, lifted her brows. “I don’t live here. I live in Charlotte.”
“You don’t live in
Charlotte,” Sam said slowly, “until this is settled and done.”
Her back went up, an automatic response. “I’m not having some wacko dictate my life. When I’m ready to go back, I’ll go back.”
“You won’t leave Sanctuary until I say you can leave.”
This time her mouth dropped open. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me right enough, Jo Ellen. Your ears have always been sharp and your understanding keen. You’ll stay here until you’re well enough, and it’s safe enough for you to leave and go about your business.”
“If I want to go tomorrow—”
“You won’t,” Sam interrupted. “I’ve got my mind set on it.”
“You’ve got your mind set?” Stunned, she strode over to the table and scowled down at him. “You think you can just set your mind on something that has to do with me after all this time, and I’ll just fall in line?”
“No. I reckon you’ll have to be planted in line and held there, like always. That’s all I have to say.” He wanted to escape, he wanted the quiet, but when he started to slide down the bench to get up, Jo slapped a hand onto the table to block him.
“It’s not all I have to say. Apparently you’ve lost track of some time here. I’m twenty-seven years old.”
“You’ll be twenty-eight come November,” he said mildly. “I know the ages of my children.”
“And that makes you a sterling example of fatherhood?”
“No.” His eyes stayed level with hers. “But there’s no changing the fact that I’m yours just the same. You’ve done well enough for yourself, by yourself, up to now. But things have taken a turn. So you’ll stay here, where there are those who can look out for you, for the next little while.”
“Really?” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Well, let me tell you just what I’m going to continue to do for myself, by myself.”
“Good morning.” Kate breezed in, all smiles. She’d had her ear to the door for the last two minutes and calculated it was time to make an entrance. It pleased her to enter a room in that house and not find apathy or bitterness. Temper, at least, was clean.