ON DEAN'S WATCH

by Linda Winstead Jones

  Weary and knowing she didn't have time to carry a grudge, Reva lay down beside Dean and wrapped her arm around his waist. She held on, because she knew the simple pleasure was a luxury she wouldn't have much longer.

  "Are you really all right?" she asked. No matter what Dean said, she could not completely dismiss her worry.

  "Absolutely. It's just a scratch."

  He would be gone in a few hours. Tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. She'd known all along that Dean wasn't going to remain in Somerset, so why did it hurt so much?

  Because she loved him, that's why. She'd been so sure she could guard her heart, but Dean had slipped in. He would always be there, she imagined. He wasn't the kind of man a woman forgot.

  She couldn't keep him here, but she didn't want his last memory of her to be getting shot or arguing about his deception and her mistakes.

  Reva raised herself slowly and laid a hand on Dean's cheek. Then she kissed him; he kissed her back. Maybe they had both made mistakes along the way, but they did this right.

  She didn't tell Dean that she loved him as she unbuttoned her dress and shrugged it off. There was nothing to talk about, no confessions to make, no plans for the future. There was just his body and hers, his heart and hers. Even if Dean never admitted to it, she suspected his heart was as involved as hers.

  He had told her, once before, that she would ask him to make love to her again. As she unfastened and unzipped his jeans, she proved him right.

  "Make love to me, Dean," she whispered. "I want my last memory of you to be here, now. Not an argument, not an uncomfortable goodbye as you leave town. Just this."

  He helped her finish undressing, moving slowly, favoring his injured arm a little, but not so much that she worried about him hurting himself. When they were both undressed, she left the bed and walked to the wardrobe. She opened the double doors.

  Dean sat up. "I can explain," he said as Reva reached into the big box at the bottom of the wardrobe.

  She'd found the box days ago as she searched for a place to hang her clothes. At first she'd been furious, and then she'd remembered watching Clint arrive and carry this very box into the house. A brotherly joke, she imagined, something they would laugh about in years to come. Knowing that, she couldn't be angry.

  Reva smiled as she stood, a randomly captured condom caught between two fingers. She read the foil label. "Green. That should be interesting."

  "I didn't buy those," Dean said as she sat on the side of the bed and opened the package.

  "You don't have to explain. I saw your brother carrying the box into the house on the day he visited. I'm smart enough to figure out the rest on my own."

  For years she'd lived without a man in her life, but the sight of Dean, beautiful and naked and aroused, lying before her, seemed achingly familiar to her, as if he'd always been a part of her life. As if he would always be here.

  She joined him on the bed and sheathed him in the green condom, then laughed at the distress on his face as she leaned in to kiss him. That she could laugh at something so silly was amazing. Dean could've been killed today. She'd been at the wrong end of a gun herself. Cooper had been mere feet away from meeting the man who was his biological father, a man she didn't want him ever to know about. Eddie had died just a few feet away in the foyer of her restaurant.

  And Dean would be leaving soon. She had nothing to laugh about, and still … there was this wonderful moment. She hadn't lived for the moment in so long she'd forgotten what it was like to concentrate only on now.

  She was ready; so was he. But she didn't want this moment to end too soon. They moved slowly, Dean's hands and mouth on her body, their kisses going on and on until she couldn't stand it anymore, until her body shook with need.

  Her fingers traced the shape of the hard body she'd never touch again. She watched her pale hand on his tanned chest, his strong legs next to hers, the desire on his face as he caressed and kissed her. How could hands so rough be so tender?

  She rolled atop Dean, guided his erection to her and surged to take him in. He did as she asked and made love to her. Deep and hard, tender and yet without restraint. She made love to him, too, moving with and against him, swaying atop him and finally swaying down to take him deeper than before. Wave upon wave of completion shook her body, and Dean came with her.

  Boneless and sated, she gently toppled over him, her legs bracketing his hips, her body and his still joined. If only she never had to let him go.

  If she was very brave, she would tell him now. I love you. Nothing else matters but that. I love you. Stay.

  But she was not very brave. She was a coward.

  She waited until Dean was asleep, then she dressed and slipped out the door.

  * * *

  The streets of Somerset looked no different this morning than they had when he'd arrived almost three weeks ago. Something was different, though. Dean suspected it was him.

  Alan had arrived last night, along with another team of two. They'd taken possession of Eddie Pinchon's body, taken Reva's statement and then left town.

  Dean had slept through most of it. Alan had awakened him long enough to take a statement. After Alan's departure, Dean had fallen immediately back to sleep.

  He hadn't mentioned the money. Not to Alan, not to anyone. At his instruction, neither had Reva. The money was his problem now, not hers. Last he'd heard, the authorities had decided the cash they'd heard about was fiction or long gone. Until Dean knew where the money had come from, it was his secret. His and Reva's.

  As Dean packed his things into Clint's pick-up truck, he kept looking toward Reva's restaurant. He couldn't see the cottage from here, but damned if he couldn't feel it pulling at him.

  Reva had told him last night that she didn't want any sloppy goodbyes, and he couldn't blame her. The sex had been good, but they didn't have anything else.

  The patter of feet alerted him to Cooper's presence. He looked around to see the kid running toward the truck.

  "Are you leaving?" Cooper asked as he watched Dean throw a suitcase into the back of the pickup.

  "Yeah. My vacation is over."

  "Oh." The kid's face fell, and something tugged at Dean's heart. "I thought maybe you would stay here. I can help you find a job! Mr. Keller at the hardware store, he's always needing help, and I bet Mom would let you work at the restaurant if you asked her, and … and you could work for the sheriff, maybe."

  "Thanks, kid, but I already have a job." Dean opened the driver's-side door. Behind the seat of this souped-up jalopy of Clint's sat a quarter of a million dollars.

  "But you said you'd build a fort on the playground," Cooper whispered.

  "I'll send the church some money, and they can hire someone—"

  "But I was going to help," Cooper interrupted. "Remember, Terrance and I had some good ideas for the fort."

  "I'll mention that when I send the check."

  Wanting only to get out of here before he began to feel any worse than he already did, Dean climbed into the truck.

  He was about to close the door when Cooper said in a frantic voice, "I'll be good. I promise I will."

  Dean left the truck and walked straight to Cooper, reaching down to pick him up so they were eye to eye. He was so light, so young, such a baby still … though he likely would not agree. "You are a good kid every day. My leaving doesn't have anything to do with that."

  Cooper was trying very hard not to cry, in that way six-year-olds have, as Dean perched him on the edge of the pickup bed. They were face-to-face, man to man. "I can not talk too much when you're around. Mom says sometimes I talk too much, but I can't help it. I can be real quiet if that's what bothers you." With that, he pursed his lips closed.

  "I like to hear you talk," Dean said. "I'm not leaving because you talk too much. I'm leaving because I have to get back to my job."

  Cooper did not look convinced, and his mouth remained tightly closed.

  "If I ever do have a kid, I hope he's just like you."
/>   Cooper's mouth relaxed. "Really?"

  "Really."

  "Maybe you can come back for another vacation sometime. You never did fix Terrance's dinosaur."

  "Maybe I can do that one of these days." Dean swung Cooper down and placed him on his feet. "You run on home now. Tell your mom I said…" No goodbyes, she'd said. Nothing maudlin. "Tell her I said thanks."

  "You can come home with me and tell her yourself," Cooper said brightly. "She's awake. She has a summer cold—that's why her eyes are all red and her nose is runny—but if you drink orange juice, you won't catch it. There's coffee!"

  "I can't," Dean said, climbing into the truck again. "I have to go."

  Cooper backed away, keeping his eyes on Dean. Even when the truck was well down the street, Cooper remained in place. Dean checked out the kid in the rearview mirror, wishing he'd go home with a skip and a hop as if nothing were wrong.

  But Cooper didn't move. He stood there as Dean turned the corner and the elegant houses of Magnolia Street disappeared from view.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  « ^

  June arrived, hot and humid. Cooper got out of school for the summer, and business in the restaurant remained good. A reporter from Atlanta arrived to do an article on Miss Reva's, and immediately they began to get phone calls from that big city. It was not much more than a two-hour drive from Atlanta to Somerset. Reva decided to hire someone to finish the upstairs rooms so she could add a couple of tables, but she never got around to calling anyone. She wasn't ready. Those rooms were Dean's.

  Mid-June she received a newspaper clipping by mail. At first she thought it was the article that had appeared in the Atlanta paper, and while it was from an Atlanta newspaper, the article was not about her business. Instead, it was a small mention of an anonymous donation made to an Atlanta women's shelter. A few days later she received another clipping about a generous anonymous donation that had been made to a drug rehab center, also in Atlanta. Ben had dropped by one afternoon, all smiles. He hadn't even lost his smile when she'd rejected his invitation to dinner in Cross City. And for once he had only good things to say about Dean Sinclair. Apparently Dean had arranged for Ben's office to receive federal money to modernize a woefully outdated computer system.

  Reva had filed the clippings away, as she filed away the passbook that had arrived in the mail one day. This time, Dean had included a note.

  I conducted a thorough investigation. No claim of any kind has been made, so there's no one to return the money to. You were right. It's dirty money. Might as well do a little good with what Eddie left behind. I've disposed of most of it, as you know, but hung on to this little bit for Cooper's college. Tax man or baseball player, the kid needs a good education. Think about it.

  The account was in Cooper's name.

  She missed Dean, more than she'd expected. And she'd known these first few weeks would be difficult. Every night, every day and everywhere she looked she saw something that reminded her of Dean.

  But no matter how much it hurt, she wasn't sorry she had loved him for a while. She couldn't be sorry. Dean had given her back something she'd lost a long time ago. Her woman's heart.

  "Mom!" Cooper ran into her office, breathless and red-faced. "Come see!" Without saying more, he turned and pounded back down the stairs. It was not yet eleven, so no customers had arrived. But the place bustled with activity, as her employees prepared for another filled-to-capacity Saturday afternoon. Miss Edna was excited, because there was one reservation for a party of twelve. A family named Taggert, she said. The woman who had called had requested that Reva be their hostess.

  Reva followed Cooper at a distance as he ran down the sidewalk in the shade of the trees. She walked briskly, but did not run. Cooper looked over his shoulder every now and then, to make sure she didn't get too far behind, and even stopped once and placed his hands on his hips in frustration.

  "Come on, Mom!" he shouted.

  He turned toward the church, cut past the sanctuary and ran to the back, where the playground was. Reva noted the black truck parked at the curb, as well as a couple of cars she didn't recognize. Alabama and Georgia plates, she saw as she followed Cooper's path onto the grassy church lawn.

  Another truck was parked in the grass near the playground, and four men were busy unloading lengths of unfinished wood. Cooper and Terrance stood close, but not too close, jumping up and down in glee.

  At the sound of laughter, Reva turned her head and saw three women sitting in the shade and sharing a blanket that had been spread across the grass. They were surrounded by children. A dark-haired little boy, a strawberry-blond toddler and two babies. Twins. When Mary turned her head, Reva recognized her.

  She looked again at the men and saw a grinning Clint in the party. Then Dean lifted his head.

  "Calm down, Reva," she said softly. "He's just come to build this playhouse, that's all. He's not here for you."

  He walked toward her as if he was here for her, a half smile on his face, a hint of uncertainty in his walk. He was dressed, as they all were, in jeans and boots and a T-shirt. Not John Deere, this time, but the Atlanta Braves.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked bluntly. Heaven above, she could not bear to have him come and go, giving her hope every time she saw him, breaking her heart every time he left.

  "Paying for my picnic lunch," he said calmly. "I brought some help."

  "I see that." Her heart thudded as he drew closer. It almost came through her chest when he draped his arm around her shoulder and pointed. "You know Clint. The guy who looks like he knows what he's doing is my brother-in-law Nick. The guy with the long hair is my brother Boone." He turned his finger to the women. "You've met Mary. The dark-haired woman is my sister, Shea, and the little boy, Justin, is hers. That's Jayne," he said, gesturing to the woman who was struggling with the one little girl in the bunch. "Boone's wife, and his little girl, Miranda."

  "You brought the whole family," she said.

  "Yep."

  "To build a fort."

  Dean leaned down and kissed her, not even hesitating even though anyone in his family could see if they looked in this direction. "Among other things."

  He took a photograph that had been folded many times from his back pocket and handed it to her without instruction. She unfolded the picture, which was of an older house similar in style to her restaurant. There were two stories, instead of three, and a lovely gallery encircled the second story. The antebellum house was in need of some repair, but was not falling down by any means.

  "The house is in a little town not far outside Atlanta."

  "It's lovely."

  "I bought it," Dean said in a lowered voice.

  "You what?" She had known he wouldn't stay, but in her heart she'd hoped … just a little. Buying a house so far away was concrete proof that he did not plan to stay here in Somerset.

  "I bought it," he said again. "I've already started fixing the place up."

  "So you're a bit of a handyman, after all." She tried not to sound as if her heart was broken.

  He nodded. "I guess I am." He drew her away from the others into the shadow of an old tree, where they were hidden from view. For the moment, anyway. "I always told you that I couldn't stay here."

  "I know."

  "And I can't," he said, taking her hand and holding on, threading his fingers through hers. "I'm good at what I do, and even with all the frustration of the job, I do make a difference. I can't give it up to live here just because leaving town made me feel like I was ripping my heart out."

  She squeezed his hand.

  "But maybe you can come with me."

  Reva opened her mouth to answer, but Dean continued, not giving her a chance.

  "The house I bought is on the north side of Atlanta. The trip is two hours, tops. We can come to Somerset every weekend, Tewanda can take over as manager, and if you want to open another restaurant—"

  Reva went up on her toes and silenced Dean with a kiss. She had
ached for his mouth in the weeks since he'd left, and to feel his lips on hers was like coming home. After a kiss that was just long enough to remind her of everything she missed about this man, Dean took his mouth from hers. "The schools are good, and there's Little League baseball. Soccer, too."

  Reva wrapped her arms around his waist. "I was going to say yes the first time. Whatever needs to be done to make it work, we'll manage."

  "We will." He leaned down and placed his forehead against hers. "I love you," he whispered.

  "I love you, too."

  "Marry me."

  "Yes."

  He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a velvet box, opening it to show her the ring inside. The diamond solitaire in a white-gold setting was antique in style, and when he placed it on her finger, it fit perfectly and felt very, very right.

  "I need a little help hanging wallpaper in the new house," he said just before he kissed her again.

  Reva laughed and threw her arms around Dean's neck. He had come back for her. She had longed for him, she had loved him, but she had never dared to hope that he might come for her and ask her to be his wife.

  "You brought the entire family with you to ask me to marry you," she said as Dean placed her on her feet.

  "I figured you should know what you're getting into." He put his arm around her and looked out on his family. "Being a Sinclair isn't easy. Trouble seems to find us wherever we go."

  "You've all managed very well," she said with a smile.

  "We have, haven't we."

  They stood there, holding each other and breathing deeply, enjoying the moment, the sun and the shade and the feeling in their hearts. The other men continued to work and hadn't yet come to collect the one who'd gotten them into this project. The women chatted and minded babies. Babies Cooper and Terrance were now curious about. After a couple of very peaceful minutes, Reva jumped slightly. "Oh, no. I have to go back to the restaurant! We have a big party coming in, and they asked for me specifically, and—"