REILLY'S RETURN

by Amelia Autin

  * * *

  Reilly's hands fascinated her almost as much as he did. Between customers she'd covertly watched him work for the last two hours as he put together the new bookshelves she'd hired him to build for her bookstore, and something about the methodical way his hands flexed and moved mesmerized her. She wondered what those large, square hands would feel like on her skin, and she shivered.

  This is crazy, she told herself. You scarcely know this man.

  She didn't understand this fascination he held for her, but she was powerless to stop it. And she had a sneaking suspicion that even if she could, she wouldn't. He was her mystery man. Unlike the other single men in town, she hadn't grown up with him, hadn't hiked through the woods or played softball or raced horses with him. But it was more than that. Colors seemed brighter when he was around, emotions sharper. Sometimes when she watched him she got the eerie feeling that she was only seeing the surface that he wanted her to see, that there were layers to him that could take a lifetime to reveal.

  The attraction wasn't only on her side. She knew instinctively that his feelings for her went beyond the casual flirting he indulged in. She'd surprised a certain look in his eyes more than once, a sort of hunger—no, more like a … yearning expression, although there was a strong element of frank male appraisal in it.

  So why hadn't he asked her out? She'd given him all the encouragement she could, had let him know as delicately as possible that she was unattached and would welcome his attentions. But so far he'd ignored every opening she'd given him.

  True, Black Rock didn't offer much in the way of night-life. Aside from one movie theater and two bars, only one of which had a live band and then only on Friday and Saturday nights, the town's residents had to drive to Sheridan or Buffalo for entertainment. But she didn't think that was the reason he'd held back.

  She tore her gaze away from him when another customer walked up to the register. She rang up the sale and made change with a smile, then stole another glance at Reilly.

  This time he caught her at it and their eyes met and held. For once he wasn't hiding behind a quip and a grin, and Mandy's smile faded as her heartbeat picked up. This man, with his powerful hands and smiling yet lonely eyes, tugged at her heart as no man had ever done, and set her nerve ends tingling in ways she'd never believed possible.

  She wanted those hands on her body, moving over her bare skin with the same patient strength with which he worked the wood, bringing her body to life. But even more, she wanted to erase that loneliness from his eyes.

  I can do it, Reilly, she pleaded silently. If you'll trust me.

  * * *

  The memory receded, leaving Mandy shaken. "All right," she whispered finally. "I'll wait for an explanation. For now, just tell me where you're taking me."

  His harsh bark of laughter startled her. "I wish I knew," he said, drawing his hand away.

  "If you don't know where we're headed, how will you know when it's safe?" He didn't have an answer for her, and she said, "I know a place."

  His brows drew together in a skeptical frown. "Where?"

  "Cody has a cabin up by Granite Pass that's less than an hour from here. I know he wouldn't mind if I used it."

  "How secluded is it?"

  "Very. No neighbors for miles. There's only one way in, and you can see and hear anyone coming long before they get there."

  "Okay," he nodded. "Sounds good. Which way do I go?"

  * * *

  Mandy peered through the windshield at the surrounding blackness. "Turn here."

  Reilly braked. Rocks and dirt spurted behind them as he turned onto a road that was little more than a two-wheeled wagon track. The truck jounced over several bone-jarring ruts before Reilly said, "Are you sure this is it?"

  "I'm sure."

  He shrugged and concentrated on keeping the truck on the road, which wound up and around the mountain. The bouncing headlights didn't help matters, making it hard to see more than a few feet ahead, and Reilly slowed even more. The road ended abruptly in a small clearing.

  "This is it," Mandy said.

  He looked around the clearing. "Where?"

  She opened the door and slid out. "We walk from here."

  He rubbed his bandaged shoulder. "I was afraid of that."

  She chuckled at his laconic tone. "It's not that far," she reassured him. "Through those trees, fifty, maybe sixty yards."

  "Great."

  "You don't happen to have a flashlight, do you?"

  For an answer Reilly leaned over and opened the glove compartment, pulled out a large, chrome-plated flashlight, and flicked it on. He handed it to her.

  "Thanks."

  He grunted, a response that could have meant anything, grabbed his duffel bag from the floor, then reached under the seat. When he straightened, Mandy's eyes widened. No one who lived in Wyoming as long as she had could be a stranger to guns, but she'd never seen Reilly with one before. And it wasn't just an ordinary gun, either. This thing was a Smith & Wesson semiautomatic cannon.

  "Since when do you pack a gun?"

  Reilly checked the clip, then set the gun down on the seat beside him while he strapped on the shoulder harness. "I've always carried one," he said finally. "I just never let you see it before."

  He holstered the .45 with a professional air that told Mandy more plainly than words just how familiar he was with it. She shivered and wrapped his jacket around her more securely. What else don't I know about you, Reilly? she wondered. And do I really want to know?

  He locked the truck's doors and pocketed the keys. "Let's go."

  They followed the path, Mandy leading the way and limping a little with only his socks protecting her feet, Reilly bringing up the rear. Without the truck's headlights, and with the moon and stars partly shielded by a ghostly bank of clouds, there wasn't much light to guide them through the inky darkness other than the wavering beam of the flashlight Mandy carried.

  The strong scents of pine and sage enveloped them, carried by a chilly north wind that rustled leaves and set the underbrush swaying. Night birds called to each other in the darkness. Reilly listened intently, his gaze darting back and forth at each cracking twig, each soft rustle.

  He hated it. Hated being out of his element. Put him down inside the city limits of any metropolitan area, and in no time at all he'd find his way. But out here he was little more than a novice, and he didn't care for the way it made him feel. It wouldn't be so bad in the normal course of things, but in their current situation it could be deadly.

  Their current situation. What a feeble phrase to describe this nightmare. How the hell had they tracked him to Mandy's? And how had they known just when to strike? Somebody was going to answer for this, Reilly promised himself. Never mind that they'd tried to kill him a year ago. Never mind that they'd tried again tonight. That was business. He'd known what he was up against from the beginning. But they'd involved Mandy now, and that he wouldn't forgive. Whoever had betrayed him—and betrayal was the only thing that made sense—whoever it was, Reilly was going to make him pay. In spades.

  Cody's cabin materialized out of the shadows. Rough-hewn and built of native materials—unfinished split logs and what looked in the poor light like mud—it blended in with its surroundings. Reilly noted with grudging approval that the cabin was situated so as to be easily defensible.

  Mandy marched up the porch steps to the front door, grasped the old-fashioned latch, and lifted. The door swung open easily.

  "Doesn't Walker believe in locks?"

  She paused on the threshold and turned toward Reilly. "He doesn't keep anything worth stealing here. And anyway, Cody says that if someone really wanted to break in, a locked door wouldn't keep them out. This way he doesn't have to worry about a busted window. Besides," she added, with just a hint of impatience, "we look out for each other out here. If someone happened upon this place, chances are they'd be either lost or in trouble of some kind. Cody keeps the cabin stocked with non-perishables, just in case."
>
  "Lucky for us."

  Was that sarcasm in his voice? Mandy's level gaze bored into him, but she didn't call him on it. "Yes," she said evenly. "Lucky for us."

  Reilly knew he was being unreasonable, but suddenly he was sick of hearing about Cody Walker's virtues. He'd met the man back when he'd first moved to Black Rock a year and a half ago. He knew Mandy and Walker were good friends, growing up together in the small town, and she had told him once that she and Walker had even dated in high school. But something in the way she talked about him now set Reilly's sixth sense humming.

  He opened his mouth to question her, then closed it again. If he started asking now, Mandy would counter with questions of her own. And he still hadn't made up his mind what, if anything, he was going to tell her. He'd promised her some answers, but until he knew what was going on, it might be safer for her if he stonewalled.

  "Come on," she said, interrupting his thoughts. "It's cold out here. The sooner we get the generator going, the sooner we'll have electricity and heat."

  Reilly followed her inside, through what appeared to be one large, high-ceilinged room, and out the back door. Baffled, he finally asked, "Where are you going?"

  "The generator's outside," she explained patiently, "in that little shed over there." The flashlight beam picked out the solid structure ahead of them.

  "Why didn't we just walk around?"

  "Because it's dark out, the path is rough, and in case you forgot, I don't have any shoes."

  That silenced him. Guilt was becoming a constant companion, he thought wryly, as he considered the discomfort she must have suffered on the way up here. She hadn't said a word, though. Hadn't complained. An unexpected flicker of pride in her took him by surprise. His Mandy was tough when the chips were down. How many men could say that about their women?

  Feeling somewhat superfluous, Reilly watched as Mandy checked everything over, then quickly started up the gas-fueled generator. "Ta-da!" she said triumphantly over the loud, thrumming sound produced by the generator. "Now we have power!"

  She started back toward the cabin, but before she had taken two steps he caught her arm. "Wait," he said. He leaned over and swung her into his arms, then strode up the path.

  "You shouldn't be carrying me with that bad shoulder," she protested.

  "I want to. It's my fault you don't have any shoes."

  "But—"

  "Just let me do it, okay? Let me at least pretend that you need me."

  She didn't say anything until they were back inside the cabin. As he set her gently on her feet, she whispered something under her breath that Reilly didn't catch.

  "What did you say?"

  At first he thought she wasn't going to tell him. Then she said slowly, "I needed you, once." She fumbled for the circuit breaker, pushed it into place, then clicked on the light switch. The sudden brightness was blinding. He blinked, saw the emotionally raw expression on Mandy's face, and closed his eyes in pain.

  "Mandy, I…"

  "I needed you," she continued. "Even though I thought you were dead, I still needed you. I called your name when I—" She caught her breath, cutting off the rest of what she'd started to say.

  "Mandy…" He reached for her, but she backed away.

  "No," she said, her voice breaking. "No. It's too late. I don't need you anymore."

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  It's too late. I don't need you anymore.

  Mandy's words and the unspoken accusation buried in them sliced through Reilly. It was like the switchblade a cornered and desperate young street tough had used on the rookie cop he'd once been, cutting him to the bone. He flinched, then touched his chest and brought away his hand, staring at it as if he actually thought he'd see his own blood there.

  He swallowed hard, then looked from his hand to Mandy's face, searching for an explanation in her eyes, but finding none. Didn't she know him at all? Didn't she know he'd have done anything, anything, to keep her safe, even if it meant tearing out his heart? Did she really think it had been easy to leave her, the only woman who'd ever bothered to look beyond his hard exterior to the vulnerable man inside?

  Curling tendrils of anger started in the pit of his stomach, then quickly spread. All his life he'd fought against injustice. How many times had he been falsely accused by his various foster parents of one misdeed or another, innocent but unable to prove it? How many times had he protested his innocence, then suffered in burning silence the harsh punishment meted out, knowing that further protest only brought more punishment? That was why, when he'd reached manhood, he'd joined the marines and then the police force, not out of a sense of civic duty, but out of a hunger to see justice served.

  Disillusionment joined his anger at Mandy. A year ago he'd been closer to her than he'd ever been to anyone in his life, had let her inside his emotional defenses in ways he'd never thought possible. For the first time he'd loved without reserve, and look where it had led him. Mandy had claimed to love him, but love hadn't mattered after all. She was no different from the others, jumping to conclusions, putting the worst possible connotation on his actions without giving him the benefit of the doubt.

  "Damn you," he said tightly, the words rasping in his throat. "Damn you." Wounded, he swung around and walked out into the night.

  * * *

  When Reilly hadn't returned fifteen minutes later, Mandy went looking for him. She wasn't bitter or mean by nature, and she'd never deliberately hurt anyone before. But she'd known as the words left her mouth that they'd been designed to hurt Reilly, and they had. The look he'd thrown her just before he walked out was burned into her mind, and now her conscience was nudging her.

  "I'm too tired for this," she muttered crossly to herself. Nevertheless, she pulled on an old pair of Cody's boots, stopping for only a second to think about the laughable picture she made in her torn blouse, bedraggled skirt, and too-large cowboy boots. She wrapped Reilly's jacket around herself against the cold, then went after him.

  He hadn't gone far. Mandy found him leaning against the shed housing the generator, staring out into the impenetrable darkness. He turned at the sound of her approach, and she stopped several feet away from him. Bitterness was etched on his face, and his defiant stance poignantly reminded her of something. She couldn't place the memory—her sleep-deprived mind refused to work properly. But her own bitterness melted a little in the face of Reilly's.

  Her voice was gentle when she said, "Come back-inside, Reilly."

  "Why?" The word came at her like a bullet.

  "Why?" Mandy considered it, then said, "Because it's very late. Because it's cold out here, and will only get colder before the night's over." An owl hooted in the distance, a lonely sound, made even lonelier by the wind soughing in the trees. She shivered and snuggled into Reilly's leather jacket, remembering a time when it had been his arms, not his jacket, that had warmed her. Then she raised her chin and added, "And because I'm not going in until you do."

  Something reached him. Whether it was her stubbornness, or the pathetic sight she made, she didn't know, but something reached him. He relaxed noticeably, and one corner of his mouth twitched. Mandy could have sworn he was fighting the urge to smile.

  "Tough guy, aren't you?" he drawled at last.

  Mandy's heart jolted, as it did every time familiar phrases came from the stranger she now acknowledged was Reilly. How many times had he teased her with just those words, in that same fake Western drawl?

  "Tougher than you'll ever be," she answered in kind, with only a slight wobble in her voice that betrayed how emotionally his words had affected her.

  Incredibly, his face softened even more, a strangely vulnerable expression replacing the bitterness she'd hated, knowing she'd put it there. He stepped toward her, his hand outstretched. "Mandy?"

  A thousand questions were embodied in that one word, questions she wasn't ready to deal with just yet. But she could no more have refused to take his hand than she could have
voluntarily stopped breathing. Her hand slid into his, and his fingers tightened around hers as if they were closing on a lifeline. His grip was almost painful, but not quite. Not quite.

  She resisted the temptation to walk into his embrace and have him hold her with that same desperate strength, but it wasn't easy. Lord knew it wasn't easy at all. Her voice husky with emotion, she said softly, "Let's go inside."

  Back in the cabin, Mandy built a fire in the fireplace to supplement the meager warmth put out by the electric space heater, then placed the fireguard in front of it. She turned to find Reilly perusing the one-room cabin's sparse interior furnishings, especially the one unmade double bed in the corner.

  "I'll bunk down in front of the fire," he said firmly, before Mandy had a chance to say anything.

  "That's silly," she exclaimed, moving to the closet by the front door. "There's a foldaway cot in here." She dived inside and was already struggling to get the unwieldy cot out when she added, "You're bigger than me, so I'll take this and you can have the bed."

  He took the cot from her and set it up easily in front of the fireplace, then tested it with his weight. "I'll take this," he said, and from his tone Mandy knew there'd be no arguing with him.

  Men, she thought, a flicker of amusement finding its way through waves of tiredness. They're so predictable. Without another word she took folded sheets, blankets and pillows from the closet, laid some on his cot, then set the rest on the double bed.

  She straightened, then looked up at Reilly. "I don't know about you, but even as tired as I am, I don't think I can crawl into bed smelling like this. While you were taking your walk, I turned on the water heater." She gestured toward the bathroom. "I doubt there's enough hot water for both of us to take a shower, but if I run the water in the tub we can share it."

  His tawny eyes gleamed unexpectedly, wickedly, and Mandy suddenly realized she'd been too careless in wording that statement. Heat crept into her cheeks. "We can take turns," she amended primly, then felt foolish. Once upon a time she'd gloried in sharing everything, including her body, with this man. Once upon a time taking a bath with him wouldn't have occasioned even a second thought. But everything was different now.