“No joke.” The words were more than a little breathless. She was weaker than she’d realized, or else the steps were higher than they looked from ground level.
“He takes his guard duty seriously. If he feels you’re headed where you shouldn’t be, he might try to stop you.”
“By taking off a leg, I suppose?”
“He wouldn’t hurt you, necessarily, but he could make it hard to get around him.”
“How convenient to have him around. One less deputy you need to pull from regular duty.”
“Don’t worry, Cal and Allen will still be at your beck and call during the day.”
So he knew his men had made themselves useful. It almost sounded as if the sheriff disapproved though she couldn’t think why. “Good,” she replied shortly. “I was wondering what would happen when the kidnappers find out I’ve been transferred here.”
His laugh had a dry sound. “You think I should have kept it secret?”
“Seems reasonable to me.”
“Not much point. Everybody in Turn-Coupe will know by dark.”
It was entirely possible that he was right. She’d noticed the level of gossip among the hospital staff. It had reminded her of her grandparents’ village where no one could sneeze before breakfast without the rest of the town asking after their health by noon.
She was so hot. So was the railing. It was also slick; her fingers slipped on the smooth metal that had been polished by countless hands over endless years. She could feel perspiration beading on her forehead and gathering between her breasts, in spite of the dense shade from the great oaks that flanked the house on either side. Her wound itched under its bandaging, while its center ached as though a white-hot poker was stabbing into her.
“Are you all right?” Roan asked. “Do you need to rest a second?”
His voice seemed to come from some distance away. She refused to look at him or the hand he held out to her. Through dry lips, she answered, “No, thank you.”
“Especially from me, you mean?”
“Whatever you say.”
“I say you’ll be lucky if you don’t take a header down these steps.”
She glanced back at the dog called Beau who followed at their heels. “Keep that animal away…and I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t look it.”
She tilted her chin. “So kind of you to mention it.”
“Nice,” he commented with a trace of exasperation in his voice. “So who are you now, an aristocrat on the way to the guillotine? Or maybe a princess with a heavy date with the headsman?”
He was so close to the mark that she swung her head to stare at him. The quick movement was a mistake. Her grip on the railing slipped. She gave a soft cry as she realized there was no way she could keep from falling.
She never struck the steps. Roan swooped, and a moment later she was swung high, then carried quickly up the last few treads and into the house.
Air-conditioned coolness, blessed and reviving, enveloped her along with the faint intimation of lemon oil polish on old wood and an elusive hint of spice as if from some forgotten bowl of potpourri. The smell was so like the scent that hung in her grandmother’s villa that she felt an odd shift of déjà vu, as if she might have been in the house before.
She caught a brief glimpse of a long and rather austere hallway furnished with antiques before Roan mounted the stairs that rose on one wall. The journey upward seemed endless. Then he pushed into a bedroom and crossed to a high tester bed piled with pillows. It felt soft and incredibly inviting under her, but the movement as he pulled away his arms jarred her shoulder. She drew in her breath with a quiet hiss.
“Sorry,” he said, then reached to catch the lower edges of her robe that had fallen open, closing them over her exposed legs. He straightened and stood staring down at her with a frown of consideration between his brows.
She looked away from his steady regard, letting her glance slide around the room. The walls were painted a yellow so pale that it must have been white until age and the smoke of countless fires under the marble mantel had given it its present patina. Beneath the wide chair rail with its egg-and-dart pattern was a striped paper in white, yellow and gold that seemed to echo the sunlight glowing behind the lace curtains. The bed she was lying on was of rosewood with a massive tester supported by fluted columns. The gold silk of its inset overhead was pulled taut from the sides in sunburst fashion and pinned in the center by an intricately carved cupid. The sweet, glazed face of that doll-like figure was crackled with age and painted in colors that had faded to appealing pastels.
Without meeting Roan’s steady regard, she said, “I should thank you for catching me just now.”
“Don’t bother.”
The words had a hard, tired sound. Tory felt the rise of heat to her face, partly from the knowledge that she’d been less than gracious, but also from his close scrutiny. He was entirely too intelligent, she thought, too knowledgeable about people. He saw too much, penetrated the disguises she hid behind far too easily. She closed her eyes as she lifted a hand to her shoulder, pressing her palm against the bandage. “I mean it, really. I don’t think I could have stood it if I’d fallen.”
“Hurting again?” he asked, his voice altering. “Doc Watkins gave me enough painkillers to last until I can fill the prescriptions he wrote for you.” He fished a small bottle from his pants pocket. “Hold on. I’ll get a glass of water.”
His instant response to her need made her feel even less gracious and more guilty than before. She opened her eyes again in time to stare after him as he disappeared into what seemed to be a connecting bathroom. He really was a disconcerting man.
A buzzing sound came from inside that bathroom, one she recognized as the discreet signal of his pager. No doubt it signaled some rural emergency: a cow escaped from its pasture, a drifter trying to stiff the local café for his meal, or maybe a little old lady racing through town at thirty-five miles per hour in a twenty-five miles per hour zone. Whatever it was, Roan would no doubt respond.
She’d discovered in talking to Johnnie and Cal that the sheriff took a personal interest in the welfare of Turn-Coupe’s citizens, that he cared about them and their problems. In turn, every person in town seemed to need his help and advice on a daily basis. Roan never seemed to mind the calls on his time, even on his days off, they all said. It wasn’t just that it was his job; he seemed to get real satisfaction from helping people.
She’d heard about men with that knight-errant streak. She also knew that the basic need to be needed was a part of the mental baggage carried around by a lot of males. Maybe if she played the dependent invalid to the hilt, then Sheriff Roan Benedict might be more inclined to be her protector rather than her jailer.
In some distant corner of her mind, she knew that her attitude was self-serving and more than a little condescending, but she couldn’t help it. If Roan wouldn’t accept the truth, then she had to try another tactic.
She could hear water running in the bathroom. A moment later, the sheriff stepped back into the room. The crystal glass he carried looked fragile in his large brown hand. He should have appeared ridiculous, perhaps, but instead seemed amazingly competent and at ease. She wondered, briefly, just how much experience he’d had in tending females in bedrooms. Then she pushed the thought away as being as irrelevant as it was distracting.
She allowed him to help her to a sitting position and swallowed the capsule he handed her. As she passed the glass back to him, he failed to take it. His gaze was on her throat, she discovered, as if he’d been watching her swallow. Warm color flooded to her hairline as he lifted his gaze and his eyes met hers.
She held that clear, gray gaze for endless moments, trying to see past the rugged features, the aura of command, the badge of his office. She wanted to know how he thought and felt, to penetrate the normal defenses of human beings to see the man he was inside.
It was impossible.
Embarrassed that she’d tried and a little depressed and confused
, she let her gaze slip away. It fell to the holstered gun clipped to his wide leather belt. A shudder, completely involuntary, rippled over her.
“It’s there for your protection.”
“Right. I’ll try to remember that while I’m having my stitches removed in a couple of days.” Attack was always her defense of choice against unwanted emotion.
“I didn’t start this merry-go-round you’re on,” he answered in the same even tone, “but I intend to see that it stops, one way or another.”
“A miracle worker, are you?” The words were husky and not quite even.
“If that’s what it takes.”
Tory wished that she could believe him, that she could tell him everything and let him take care of it. To do that, however, she would have to unravel all the events that had led her to Dog Trot, would have to reveal the person she really was behind the facade of attitudes and disguises she’d perfected over the years. How could she do that when she wasn’t sure who that woman was herself?
“Dad?”
The voice from the open door had the pliant, uncertain cadence of adolescence. A boy stood there, obviously Roan’s son since he was almost as tall and his features so nearly identical that it was almost humorous.
“What?” It was a second before Roan withdrew his gaze and turned toward the doorway.
“Truck coming up the drive, probably Kane. Thought you might want to know.”
Roan dipped his head in acknowledgement, then reached out in a beckoning gesture. “As long as you’re here, come meet Donna.”
The boy slouched into the room with the leggy awkwardness of a half-grown colt. His sandy hair was cut one length at chin level and his eyes were more hazel than gray. As his father laid a hand on his shoulder, he glanced at it but made no attempt to move away.
“My son Jake, Donna.”
“Hello,” Tory said, extending her good hand. The boy gave her a quick inspection as he took it, but remained mute. He held her fingers a bare second, as if uncertain what to do with them. Then he broke the contact and stuffed his fists into his pockets.
She tried the effect of a smile. “I’m sorry if my being here is an inconvenience. I’ll try not to be too much trouble.”
His gaze slid away again, though whether from shyness or discomfort because she was in a hospital gown, she couldn’t tell. He said finally, “It’s okay. It’s Dad’s idea.”
“So I imagined, but still.”
Jake nodded, then looked at his dad. “About Kane? You coming, or you want me to ask him to step up here?”
“I’m coming.” Roan glanced at his watch. “I have to check in with the office anyway, and Donna needs to rest.”
They left without another word. Tory lay staring at the light beyond the lace curtains, watching the light fabric waft in the draft from the air-conditioning and listening to the faint whistle of the cool air blowing out of the floor vents. It was so quiet, so peaceful, and so very comfortable compared to the hospital. She could almost feel her nerves unwinding, feel herself drifting into medicated contentment so great she thought she could sleep forever. She had such a sense of being surrounded by absolute security. Why was it that only Roan Benedict could make her feel that way. Why?
Kane was waiting for Roan at the foot of the outside staircase. He leaned against the sturdy end post of the wrought-iron railing in the shade provided by the big oak that had sheltered them as they played cops and robbers when they were kids. It had been a fine way to pass a long summer’s day. They were a hell of a lot busier now, both of them.
Beau, fawning around Kane’s feet, abandoned him without visible shame as soon as Roan came down the steps. Roan gave the bloodhound a quick pat before reaching over the dog’s head to take his cousin’s hand. They exchanged greetings and mutual assessments, all in the space of a few seconds.
“So how’ve you been?” Roan asked at last in his capacity as host.
“Fine, fine.”
“And Regina?”
“Finer.” Kane grinned, his blue eyes bright. “Getting bigger and more impatient every day. And blaming me for the whole thing.”
Kane had changed, Roan thought. There was a relaxed set to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before his marriage to Regina, and his smile was quicker and more frequent. He looked almost as carefree as he had in their teenage years when the whole gang of Benedict cousins had raced boats, played baseball, tinkered with cars, and shared secrets and half-raw fried fish around roaring bonfires on the lake’s edge. Roan had little doubt as to what had brought about the change. Kane was a happy man, and his Regina was expecting their first child.
“You’re not trying to deny responsibility?” Roan said with mock sternness.
“God, no,” Kane said fervently. “It’s all my fault, even if I did have cooperation.”
“Remember that, and you’ll be fine.”
“So they tell me.”
“Who, Aunt Vivian and Miss Elise?” It was usually the older women who gave the best advice, in Roan’s experience.
“And Granny Mae. Yes, and even April, for crying out loud, though she’s never been any closer to pregnancy than helping deliver a litter of kittens.”
Roan lifted a questioning brow. “She and Luke trying, you think?”
“I didn’t ask and don’t intend to, since I’d like to live to see the birth of my child,” Kane declared with a grin. “But we’re none of us getting any younger.”
Roan replied with the grunt such a crack deserved. A small silence fell, and he filled it by offering his cousin a cup of coffee. Kane declined, saying that Regina was making lunch and if he didn’t get home soon, he’d hear about it. Roan acknowledged the excuse with a wry look of masculine compassion. At the same time, he felt a twinge of jealousy. No one was cooking lunch for him.
Stepping over to Kane’s truck on the circle drive, he put the base of his spine against the front fender and crossed his booted feet. The visit was not entirely social, Roan was sure; it was too early in the day for that. They had finished the polite ritual that had to be taken care of before they could get down to business. Now it was up to his visitor to state his case.
Kane was a lawyer, so used to choosing his words with care. He was also dressed for the office, in slacks and a well-pressed dress shirt. Regardless, he followed Roan’s lead, propping his expensive shoe leather on one of the tall black truck tires and studying it as he spoke. “Regina called me at the office. She said Betsy telephoned her with a story from Johnnie about you being on your way to Dog Trot with a special guest. That wouldn’t be true, would it?”
Roan sighed. The Turn-Coupe grapevine was fast, but it was nothing to the jungle drum swiftness employed by the Benedict clan. He supposed Kane had a right to be concerned, however; he and Regina lived in an old Greek Revival mansion just down the road.
“If you’re worried about your wife…”
“You know better than that. It’s you we’re worried about, your safety, that is. Well, and maybe your sanity.”
“Neither is at risk. I’d invite you in for an introduction so you could see for yourself, but the trip from the hospital was a bit rough and my prisoner is resting just now.”
The look Kane gave him was grim. “You have a female prisoner here in your home, a possible felon, with no security measures?”
“You’re forgetting Beau.” The hound, losing interest in their discussion, had flopped down onto the walk and put his head on his paws. At the sound of his name, he gave his tail a sleepy thump.
“So I was. A huge oversight. Unless she takes a notion to murder you in your bed while Beau’s outside howling at the moon.”
“She’s not going anywhere. She was shot, damn it.”
“By you, right?”
Roan agreed with a curt nod.
“I’d heard it, but couldn’t believe it. Not much fun, I’d imagine, for either one of you.”
Kane was silent as he held his cousin’s gaze.
“No,” Kane answered himse
lf, then added. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I have a prisoner under house arrest here until her court date. That’s all there is to it.”
“Except you’ve never done it before. You sure it’s not guilt that’s riding you?”
“So what if it is? She still needs help.”
“And I guess it has nothing to do with Carolyn?”
Roan shrugged. The remorse over the past was unremitting, but bothered him most on Jake’s birthday when he was reminded that the boy had grown up virtually without a mother. Hell, he wouldn’t know how to act without it on his shoulders.
“You weren’t responsible for what your ex-wife tried to do. A lot of people felt you were probably the only reason it didn’t happen sooner. Besides, you saved her life.” The sun caught in the iridescent strands of Kane’s dark hair as he tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowed against the reflection off the truck’s windows. “But that woman in there isn’t Carolyn. The way I hear it, she pulled a gun on you. You were justified in taking her down.”
“I’m not confusing the two, if that’s what you think,” Roan said, his voice blunt. “Besides, Donna never fired.”
“But you don’t know that she wouldn’t have, given the chance.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, I screwed up and the suspect got hurt. Now I’m taking care of her the best way I know how. And that’s it.”
Kane gave a slow nod, then glanced away as a blue jay screeched in the oak tree at the far corner of the house, warning all comers away from his territory. Roan, following the same line of sight, wondered if maybe that wasn’t what he was doing, too, in his own way.
When Kane spoke again, his voice had the smooth cadence it carried when he was presenting a case. “What about the legalities? For instance, has this woman even been booked? The D.A. will expect to see charges come across his desk soon. You know what a stickler he is, almost as much as you are yourself.”
Roan refused to meet his cousin’s intent gaze. “It’s not easy to decide on charges since she can’t remember enough to answer questions. According to Doc Watkins, her amnesia may clear up as she gets better, but it could be days, even weeks. Or never.”
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