The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel)

by Ward, Susan

  Seductively, he murmured, “You would be shocked if you knew how long I’ve been imagining this. You know, don’t you, Krys, I intend to live out every fantasy of you I’ve had.”

  His fingers were lightly rubbing, touching the soft swell of her breast pushed into fullness by the warm surface of his chest. His hands brushed lower, under her panties, down along the smooth slope of her buttocks. She shivered.

  “Have you, in all you’re fantasizing, thought out what we’re to do about this pesky annoyance called clothes?”

  She tipped her head to look up at him.

  “I can work with anything.” His finger traced down her cheek. His voice was soft. “Tell me you want this as much as I do. Tell me, Krys...”

  She shivered again. Breathing deep to find the oxygen to speak, she whispered into his mouth, “What do I have to do? Burst into flames? Do you want conversation or love, kiddo?”

  She swallowed his laughter with a kiss. Their bodies were a gradual movement threaded with dizzying pleasure. His returning kisses were vibrant and built slowly in the tightening desire, dissolving her thoughts in an urgency of openness and need. Even the claps of his jeans against her flesh were sweetly erotic to her blurring senses.

  They were still fully clothed, had done nothing to work out the interference, but even without that glorious sensation of flesh against flesh, her body had become a burning vat of desire. He knew her body better than she knew it herself, knew what the lightest touch of a fingertip up her spine could do, what those heated kisses beneath her ear could lead to, what those hoarsely murmured love-words could ignite inside of her.

  It was a mistake to give herself over too completely to the magic of Devon’s hands. She forgot where they were and the reasons for his cautiously, sweetly seductive movements. Forgot, until the sudden twist of her body sent the hammock swirling out from beneath them. Breathless and laughing, they collapsed onto the freshly cut grass.

  She lay dizzy in the grass, struggling against her laughter, staring up at Devon’s face, which was flushed with passion but humor, as well. He reached out, plucking grass and bits of leaves from her cloud of hair as his kisses lingered.

  “I should have known better than to dare the hammock,” Krystal laughed as she spread warm kisses against Devon’s chest.

  His rakish smile spread slowly wider, and she arched her body to accommodate his hands; they were working free the simple row of buttons down the front of her sundress.

  He pushed back her dress and stared, drowsy with desire at her golden skin, kissed by the glow of the sun. Catching her tiny waist in both hands, he moved so her thighs spanned his hips, and as that part of her glided over his pelvis, she felt the insistent sting of her own need. She bit her lip, his movements so deliciously controlled and tantalizingly gentle.

  With a pounding heart, she asked, “Am I being treated to your hammock technique after all?”

  “We only have an hour before Katie gets home from school. Don’t want to waste time redoing my planning. It’s been improved a little by the grass, I think.”

  “Says you.” She chided, but her sparkling blue gaze was telling him everything.

  “Never doubt it.”

  Devon struggled to contain his anger as his fingers tightened around the phone. He listened to the familiar, furious voice drone on: “Dammit, did I question you when you said you were onto a story. Did I? I opened the expense account and said run. It’s been months, without a damn thing to show for it and not even a hint of what you’re onto. This isn’t a magazine. It’s a newspaper. We cover what’s happening now! And right now, all hell’s breaking loose down here.

  “I need you here working those contacts you have in the federal building so we won’t be blindsided in the second round. They fired your best contact at the federal building yesterday. That senior aid, Watson, in federal court, was fired for talking to Mitchell at The Chronicle. Hell, The Chronicle ran the lead that they were negotiating a deal in the Stafford Case so that she could return. Rumor is flying downtown that she’s halfway home. We didn’t even see it coming because you weren’t here.

  “Devon, I need you here. There are rumors flying, something is about to break, and no one can cut through the bullshit to the truth better than you can!”

  With poorly concealed contempt, Devon growled, “Are you telling me where and how to do my job, Phil? Is that what you’re trying to do?”

  “I’m telling you to get your ass back here! I need someone working the Feds now. There isn’t a week. There isn’t a day. It’s breaking now...”

  Devon worked at the Miller house all the next day.

  He had left her at first light. Krystal had a groggy memory of him whispering some outrageous comment that the night they had spent together would make it impossible to work anywhere within fifty feet of her today.

  It was late afternoon before a break in her steady stream of lessons gave her an opportunity to jog over to Devon’s.

  As she climbed the open wood stairway toward Devon’s bedroom, she felt a blush tinge her cheek. She had felt like a woman possessed last night. She had never behaved so wantonly before.

  She was almost about to push through the door, when Devon’s voice, uncharacteristically sharp and furious, stopped her.

  “You can go to hell, Phil. I’m telling you I won’t be ordered back like a first year stringer!”

  More silence. Then Devon’s response, which would have made a longshoreman blush, and the sound of something crashing against the wall.

  Stepping into the room, Krystal assessed the scene with a quick glance. Kneeling down, she picked up the pieces of the phone.

  With forced amusement, she said, “Whatever it is, I don’t think this poor phone quite deserved this.”

  He looked at her then, and she felt a sinking dread in her stomach. She had never seen Devon without the customary good humor in his eyes, nor had she seen him so obviously enraged, his fists clenching and unclenching at his side, as though trying to work a release for whatever it was that had happened.

  Starting again, she added, “I think you’re going to have to either settle for two cans and a string or break out the super glue!”

  So much for humor. Silence reigned.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she said finally. “Is it your editor? Does he want you to go back?”

  Through tight jaws, he said, “Screw Phil.”

  That bad, huh, Krystal thought, cautiously approaching.

  She held back without touching him. “Do you need to go back to Los Angeles, Devon? We knew it would happen eventually. We can work something out.”

  “Screw Los Angeles.” Devon pulled her down onto his lap. “I don’t want to talk about it, Krys. Not yet, anyway.”

  Oh, something is seriously wrong. She could feel it in how tightly he held her.

  “Well, if what you want to do is to bust up the rest of the room, I’d rather not stay for that!”

  She didn’t know what showed on her face, but his eyes suddenly softened. Perhaps he just sensed her unease while he held her, because the muscles which had been like granite seemed to gradually release tension, and he relaxed his hold on her.

  He buried his face in her hair, his shoulders shaking from silenced laughter.

  “I don’t bust up rooms, Krys. Breaking that phone is a first for me.” This time his voice came gently and with remorse. “I think I’d do almost anything to keep that expression from appearing on your face again. You don’t have a reason ever to be afraid of me. I’m not Nick Stafford. I love you so damn much, Krys. Don’t ever think that isn’t everything in the world to me.”

  Relaxing herself, she teased, “It’s a shame you didn’t have the same affection for the phone.”

  She poked at the floor with a bare toe and smiled when he laughed with his familiar good humor.

  Settling back against his chest, she said quietly, “If you need to go, Devon. You need to go. We both knew going into this that it could only be temporary. I d
on’t want you staying here because you think I need you to. Because I don’t.” With an overly dramatic sigh, she announced, “I’ll manage to fill my days somehow until you come back again. That is if you decide you’ve got a reason to come back!”

  He buried his lips in her hair, near her ear. “You had better not ever doubt that!” His laughter slowly faded and he added, “I’m not going back to LA, Krys. Not yet. Did it ever occur to you that I may need to stay for me?”

  “Have you ever considered that I may need to feel you’re not bartering away pieces of yourself to be with me?”

  “I’m not bartering away anything.”

  “That’s why a phone call from your editor made you break the phone?” she countered knowingly.

  “I thought we had decided you’re stuck with me, kiddo.”

  “And I thought we had decided that whatever happened, we would still do the things we have to do,” she replied sadly, thinking of the possible eventuality of running again. “You know that I can’t depend on my life in Coos Bay being anything more temporary, Devon. Don’t expect me to make decisions or act like it could ever be more.”

  “What I expect is for you to allow me to make my own decisions when, and if, the situation changes. Promise me, Krys. Whatever happens, you’ll at least give us a chance to work a solution together.”

  The expression on Devon’s high-boned face tore at her heart.

  “I can’t give you assurances about the future, Devon. Don’t ask me to.”

  She was right. Damn, what had made him say that? He leaned forward and kissed her. “I know. I don’t know what made me ask you to.”

  They both knew why he had asked.

  She melted against him, her cheek on his chest, and he knew it was so he couldn’t see her face. Her hands slowly ran up his arms in a comforting gesture.

  Damn, his muscles felt like granite again. He hated this tension, the tension of waiting, knowing that at any time their world could tilt off course in any of a thousand different directions. No matter how hard they fought to keep it out, the world kept coming.

  If Phil was right, something was happening in Los Angeles that could possibly change everything. He made a mental note to call his sources among the Feds to learn what was happening, since Morgan had felt disinclined to inform him.

  He could feel their happiness slipping away. There was such a desperate need in him to savor each glorious moment in what seemed to be the calm before the storm. He had never considered for a moment responding to Phil’s ultimatum.

  If it were only for one more day, he wanted it. Needed it. Needed more. A lifetime.

  God, he wouldn’t ask for anything else, ever, if somehow fate saw fit not to take this woman from him.

  The next morning, it was a matter of twelve calls to find out what was happening. Sifting through the cautiously divulged fragments of information, and working them into the puzzle, Devon had a pretty clear picture of what was about to happen.

  Nick Stafford’s attorneys had been in contact with federal authorities. Another rumor buzzed that Stafford had drawn documents relinquishing parental rights to Katherine Stafford. Another, that Morgan’s attorneys were woven through the events in a way that no one could understand.

  It was only a matter of days until Krystal Stafford could return to Los Angeles. Over two years of hiding were soon to be over. Would the happiest months of Devon’s life be over as well?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It began as an ordinary day. It would end as the most miserable night of Devon’s life.

  They’d passed the morning at the end-of-year carnival at Coos Bay High, beneath a brilliant, blue Oregon morning sky. He walked the long rows of booths and rides, Krystal’s hand in his, exchanging seductive, carefully worded innuendo with her about how they would pass the night, since Katie would be leaving with Fritz and Maggie for the cabin later that afternoon.

  They rode the rides, ate junk food, played games, and took turns indulging Katie’s whims. There was such a feeling of completeness and perfection to the day that it seemed as if nothing could touch their happiness.

  They dropped Katie at Fritz’s store before the high school graduation ceremony in the gym. Seated beside Devon in the long rows crowded with the students’ families, Krystal could not have been prouder, even if Jason and the boys had truly been her own.

  She felt a deep connection and sense of achievement in their accomplishments. No award or acclaim she had ever earned during her career as Krystal Stafford had ever made her feel better than the day Ronnie had swung her around her tiny living room after announcing that he had been accepted to Juilliard.

  He had come to her first, even before showing the letter to his parents, knowing she understood better than anyone what this dream meant to him.

  She looked over at Devon. Her eyes traveled upward, over the lean midriff she could see through his pale, cotton shirt; over his upper chest and suntanned neck revealed by his open collar; to that cleft chin with its tiny scar she had placed kisses on last night, and those lazily smiling lips whose taste lingered in her mouth.

  “If you keep looking at me like that,” Devon warned in a seductive whisper, “you are going to miss the whole ceremony.”

  Blushing and breathless, she answered, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Devon’s smile deepened. “Stop that. Behave. For a woman who isn’t comfortable with overt public displays of affection, right now your expression is very overt.”

  “It must be the company I’ve been keeping. Jason told me about this storage room at the end of the hall. All kinds of things have been known to happen there.”

  She ran a light finger up his thigh. Devon’s chest shook with silent laughter.

  “Behave yourself. Whatever I did to bring this on, remind me later when we’re alone,” he teased, his hand closing over hers just before it reached his hip.

  She was smiling up at him, eyes bright with desire, and whispering outrageous things to Devon when she heard her own name carried over the room on the electric hiss of the microphone.

  “...well, there’s no telling you what this woman’s friendship and guidance has come to mean to us. We all are in agreement that of all our teachers, Mrs. Dillon has had the most profound effect on our futures,” Jason said, and a thundering of applause followed.

  Shaken and more than a little embarrassed by the words of praise, Krystal’s gaze did a quick search of the smiling faces turned toward her. She surmised from their expectant faces that they anticipated some kind of a response from her and she mustered the poise to stand up and to do a quick, hurried wave to the boys before reclaiming her seat.

  She had expected the attention to turn from her. It did not. Puzzled, she looked at the boys on stage. It was then that she saw a bundle of yellow roses, her favorite, held in the hands of a beaming Ronnie.

  Her mind buzzed with warning and her heart took furious force in her chest. She didn’t want to become the recipient of more unwanted attention, but how could she sit here and not climb to the stage to accept the roses. There would be no way for her not to embarrass Ronnie, the boys, or herself.

  Rising on shaking limbs, a strange sense of impending doom flooded her veins. She hurried up the narrow, clogged walkway to the boys. She was on stage, a breath away from Ronnie, when she saw him.

  The warning bells tolled in alarm.

  Working his way to the base of the stage was a reporter from the Coos Bay Gazette, his camera held to his face, the lens turning to get clear focus. It was a big deal that Ronnie had been accepted to Juilliard, the son of a local fisherman of modest circumstances, who had grown up in the careful isolation of a town of under sixteen thousand.

  It was the kind of human interest story that had a habit of being carried by the other, larger newspapers because of their sentimental value.

  There was no time to move, no time to stop what she feared was happening. Krystal tried to raise the flowers to shield her face when the picture snapped in a flas
h of a second. The flowers were only at chest level, and in a horrible, earth-shattering moment, Krystal felt her life in Coos Bay dissolve around her.

  Devon sat, unable to stop what he knew would happen. He had seen the reporter. The flash of the camera. The look on Krystal’s face. He knew with panic what it meant, just as clearly as she did.

  Krystal was gone by the time Devon reached the stage.

  Whirling Jason to face him, he asked, “Where did she go?”

  His tension transmitted itself without effort to the boy. In a rush, Jason replied, “I don’t know. She asked for my keys...”

  Devon didn’t wait for him to finish. Running, he took the steps two at a time, knowing that Krystal was gone, and if he didn’t catch her, gone from his life forever.

  Krystal ran into her house and grabbed the large duffel bag she had taken with her that night from Morgan.

  Her heart thudded painfully in her breast, as she fought to keep her thoughts focused. She wished she could take her tiny house she had pulled together with such love and tip it sideways so the contents would spill into her bag. But she couldn’t.

  Rummaging frantically through drawers and closets, she took only those things she knew she would need for herself and Katie. There would be another house, in another city, and she would start again from scratch, slowly building another life out of nothing.

  She’d stopped at a pay phone before reaching home, the first step into the future. Shaking, she’d dialed the number she knew by memory. It rang twice before that familiar voice answered.

  “I need the help of strangers,” Krystal had whispered, her voice trembling as she delivered the coded message she had first seen scribbled on a piece of paper over two years ago.

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “Krystal?”

  There was surprise in the voice, with more subtle tones of worry. It had been almost two years since Grace had heard from her, when she had called to inform her that she would no longer need the protection of the Network.