by Anne Stuart
“We were talking about the massacre,” Ellie lied with a skill so immediate that it astounded her.
Ginger shook her head. “That’s no way to win him.”
“Win him?” Ellie echoed, glad she was still standing in the shadows. “Why in the world would I want to win him?”
“Like I just told you, Ellie. Men like Tanner don’t come around too often.”
“Thank God,” she muttered.
“You really don’t want him?” Ginger demanded. “You’re absolutely sure?”
Ellie looked at her old friend with knowing eyes. For a moment she wondered what Ginger would say if she told her the truth. If she said, yes, I want him, I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. Keep your hands off him, he’s mine.
Ginger wouldn’t believe it. Ginger would laugh. Ginger believed what she wanted to believe, whatever was most convenient in her own self-centered life. Ginger wanted Tanner; Ellie had recognized that fact the moment she saw the two of them together, and nothing on this earth was going to shake her determination. Nothing short of Tanner’s outright refusal, and much as Ellie might like to fantasize about that possibility it was highly unlikely.
If she had any sense at all she wouldn’t want him herself. She’d pass him on to Ginger with her blessing and without a second thought. “I’m sure,” she said in the shadows. And very carefully she wiped the dampness from her lips.
* * * * *
It had been a cool night. A sleepless night. Ellie had lain awake for hours, too tired to get up to close the window, too wide-awake to do more than lie there and worry. By six o’clock in the morning she was down in the huge old kitchen, drinking coffee in her oversize flannel nightgown, her bare feet cold on the aging linoleum as she looked around her.
If she was going to stay, she could do things about the place, she thought, not for the first time. She could paint the tall brown cabinets white, hang plants in the bay window, pull up the cracked linoleum to show the wide pine boards beneath. She could put a radio in and play country music while she baked bread. She could raise a passel of kids. It was a big house—it could hold a lot of kids. The sound of children’s laughter would do a lot to lighten up this dark old place.
But children needed a father. And there wasn’t a single possibility. She wasn’t going to marry Bernie Appleton or Fred Parsons with their ready-made families. And she’d long ago given up on Lonnie.
How far was Tanner going to push her when he came over this morning? She couldn’t tell him the truth—she owed Lonnie that much. She owed the Judge that much. Besides, it was none of his business. Her past sex life was her own concern and no one else’s, and he had a lot of nerve making assumptions, asking questions, pushing her for answers.
Life was so much easier twenty, thirty years ago. Women were expected to be in a state of relative purity, and no one would have suggested otherwise.
Except, of course, if they’d been married, she reminded herself grimly. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried.
She had never been able to pinpoint when the Judge’s feelings about her changed from parental to something else. Maybe they’d never been fatherly, and she’d just been too involved in her pain and loss to notice. When she’d finally realized that his possessiveness, his generosity, his heavy-handed attempts at flirtation came from unexpectedly husbandly feelings, there’d been no question in her mind what she should do. He’d given her more than any other human had, and asked nothing in return. If he wanted to have a real marriage she would give it to him.
It had been a miserable, humiliating failure. The Judge was too old, too tied up with guilt and confused feelings, and Ellie was too inexperienced to overcome his emotional and physical difficulties. She was left feeling confused and ashamed, no longer knowing what she wanted.
She’d gone from bad to worse. There were plenty of reasons for her failure with the Judge, reasons she could accept once the initial embarrassment had passed. As far as she knew there was no reason for her failure with Lonnie.
They’d been dating in high school, before the massacre. He’d been a shy boy, overwhelmed by his blustering father, inept at the manly sports his father had demanded of him.
But he’d been gentle and sweet with Ellie back then. And after the Judge had died there’d been no one else, just Poor Lonnie, fresh from an unpleasant divorce, waiting for her.
She’d given herself time. She’d done what she could, waiting for Lonnie to make a move.
He didn’t make one. She waited, and waited, and when finally curiosity and frustration grew too much for her, she took matters into her own hands. It had ended with the same futility and sense of inadequacy as her attempt with the Judge. And while Lonnie had been the soul of gentleness, she knew whose fault it had to be.
Now here was Tanner, reminding her of things she’d chosen not to feel, waking her up to emotions she hadn’t even come close to before. Here was Trouble, and instead of running as far and as fast as she could, she was lending him her car, her time, her mouth—and her body, if it ever came to that.
She reached down and rubbed her stiff knee. He was wrong about her knee, but maybe that was wishful thinking on his part. He wasn’t wrong about her. She’d been cosseted and protected too long, out of the real world. Tanner was as solid a dose of reality as they’d had around here in a long time. Reality wasn’t always pleasant, but it was better than sleeping her life away.
She wrapped her arms around her waist and hugged herself in the chilly kitchen. Two weeks. Tanner would be gone, and so would she. Maude would keep the horses, Jamie would feed them, and when she got settled she’d send for them. She’d have to come back for them—no one else would be able to get Shaitan into a horse trailer. But that would be the last time. Maude hadn’t left Morey’s Falls in more than twenty years, but for Ellie she’d do it. The Barlows would come to visit, wherever she ended up. But never again would she live in a living monument to death like Morey’s Falls.
She didn’t hear the door open. She didn’t feel the eyes on her, so different from the angry, threatening gaze that seemed to haunt her, the gaze she could never trace. She was staring sightlessly out the side window, into her blank future, when Tanner spoke.
“Is that nightgown an invitation? If so, I ought to tell you that I prefer silk to flannel.” And he shut the door behind him with a quiet little click before advancing on her, purpose in every line of his graceful body, his eyes intent.
* * *
Chapter Ten
* * *
Ellie’s hand tightened around the mug of coffee for a moment before giving him her full attention. “It’s too early in the morning for heavy-handed seduction, Tanner,” she said calmly. “Stop stalking me and pour yourself a cup of coffee. I’m willing to bet it’s a lot better than anything you’ve had this morning.”
To her relief it worked. The predatory air left him, he strolled to the stove and helped himself. “You might lose the bet. I stopped off and had a cup with Addie Pritchard on my way over here. She makes damned good coffee.” He took a tentative sip, impervious to the scalding temperature. “It’s too weak.”
“What else would you expect?” She wanted to button the top of her flannel nightgown, but refused to give in to the temptation. Even with Tanner’s high-powered sexuality turned down to only a dim glow she was acutely aware of her state of undress.
He took the straight-backed chair across the table from her, flipped it expertly and straddled it, resting his arms on the back. “No comment. Do you always get up this early?”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
He grinned. She watched in fascination as it started as a smirk, broadened, and finally reached the cool depths of his blue eyes. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said in her mildest voice. “I expect to sleep very well in a couple of weeks.” Absently she rubbed her knee through the heavy flannel nightgown.
“Once I’m gone,” he supplied, his eyes watching her hand. “Think
you’ll last that long?”
“I’ve had sleepless nights before.”
“I wasn’t talking about sleeping.”
“Tanner...” Her voice carried a very definite warning.
“I’ll behave,” he promised rashly, and she didn’t for one moment believe him. He reached in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and came up empty. “Damn,” he said, rising. “I left my cigarettes out in the car.”
“You don’t really need to smoke,” she protested.
He stopped where he was. “I’ll tell you what, Ellie. I won’t smoke if you don’t limp.”
Enough was enough, she thought grimly, pushing back her chair. “Come here, Tanner,” she said in an even voice.
His expression was wary. “Why?”
Ellie allowed herself a determined little smile. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to show you something.” She reached down and pulled up her flannel nightgown, halfway up her thigh, exposing her knee to his reluctant gaze.
She tried to see it from his viewpoint. It was part of her body, and she’d learned to accept it, but a stranger, especially someone like Tanner, wouldn’t be used to women with those kinds of scars marring them.
The scars ran from halfway down her calf to midthigh, deep, wide scars that still kept their livid color, a color that was unlikely to fade after all these years. Her leg was twisted slightly, and all the physical therapy in the world hadn’t managed to straighten it completely. Ellie looked down at it and sighed.
“Pretty ugly, isn’t it?” she said evenly. “I hate to tell you Tanner, but it makes me limp.”
She shouldn’t have done it. His mask was back in place, his eyes cool and blue and unreadable. If she’d hoped to shock him into some sort of reaction, she’d failed.
“I’ve seen worse,” he said. “You don’t seem to have any trouble riding. If you can control that black beast of yours then you can’t be that messed up.”
“Shaitan’s very responsive,” Ellie said, flaring up at the insult to her beloved horse.
“Still trying to convince me you’re a cripple?”
“I’m not a cripple,” she shot back. “Sometimes my knee hurts and I limp. It’s that simple.”
“And sometimes my nerves hurt and I smoke,” Tanner said. “Another simple equation. I’ll get my cigarettes, and you can get your cane. Where’d that fancy thing come from, anyway? The head of it looks like solid gold.”
“It is,” Ellie said. “It was a birthday present from the Judge.”
“It figures,” he drawled. “What’d he do, give you a wheelchair for Christmas?”
“Nothing’s going to shut you up, is it?”
He shook his head, unrepentant. “It takes a hell of a lot to do it.”
“Get your cigarettes, Tanner,” she said, pulling the heavy flannel down over her knee again. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“That’s a shame. I like arguing with you.”
“Why?”
“Why?” he echoed. “I’m not sure. Maybe because things are safer that way.” And before she could respond he’d headed back out the kitchen door, leaving it open to the early-morning chill.
* * * * *
The air was cool and crisp outside, unseasonably chilly, and he crossed the walkway to the car in long strides, taking in deep breaths of the fresh morning air. He stopped by the Buick and leaned against it for a moment, unseeing.
He began cursing, a low, steady stream of profanity. He felt sick, shaking with a rage so deep, so profound that he wanted to pound on the shiny black hood of Ellie’s car.
He pushed himself back, forcing himself to take slow, calming breaths.
It had never seemed real before. Reading the newspaper accounts, seeing the survivors, even visiting the scene hadn’t made it sink into his thick skull.
But those long, dark scars on Ellie Lundquist’s leg were real enough. The lines around her warm brown eyes and her generous mouth were lines of remembered pain, and the limp was real. And his father was a vicious, murdering bastard.
What did that make him? What right did he have to come back here, to remind people, to remind Ellie of a past that was better left buried? Even for Alfred’s sake, did he have the right to dredge up past miseries?
Except that those miseries weren’t in the past, weren’t safely buried. They were alive, tormenting this town, and his presence made no difference, one way or the other. The people in this town had to come to terms with that day of violence, with his father’s life, just as he had. All of them, Tanner included, had put it off too long.
She was sitting where he’d left her, staring into her coffee. Her hair hung down her back in a thick chestnut tangle, her bare feet were curled on the chair rung, and her forehead was creased with thought. With worry?
As usual he felt like the world’s worst bastard. As usual he wasn’t going to do anything about it but make things worse. He didn’t take his seat again, but began prowling around her huge, dark kitchen, opening cupboard doors, intensely aware of her troubled gaze watching his progress. “What’s on the agenda for today?” he asked, poking around the Rice Chex. “Any charnel houses we could visit? Maybe we could have a picnic in the graveyard.”
She ignored his tone of voice. “I’m trying to think who would be the best person for you to talk with. Lonnie’s available anytime. He has an almost ghoulish fascination with that day—he could tell you anything in terms of facts and figures, but he doesn’t necessarily know about emotions. Addie wasn’t around. Georgia Bellingham lost her husband and her brother, but she’s just finishing teaching for the year and she’d be pretty busy. You wouldn’t get anywhere with Pete Forrester, so there’s no need to try the Fireside Cafe. Maybe George Throckton—he lost his mother and father. Or Mabel Henry. She was dating Nils-Jacob Lundquist. Or there’s—”
“Please stop,” he said, his voice low and bitter as he tried to halt her cheerful litany of death. “Didn’t anyone die a natural death around here?”
He could feel the warmth in her eyes—it was a tangible thing, reaching out to him, enfolding him in comfort. Determinedly he shook it off.
“Well, a few,” she said. “The Judge’s wife, for one.”
“I thought you were the Judge’s wife,” he countered, seizing on a new topic as would a drowning man a lifeline.
If he’d hoped to shake her he’d failed. She merely shrugged. “For sixteen years of my life I’d thought of Mrs. Lundquist as the Judge’s wife. Just because he happened to marry me later didn’t really change things. They were made for each other.”
“Made for the Judge, eh? I can just imagine. She must have had blue hair, an iron jaw and a massive bosom.”
Ellie giggled. The sound was soft, unexpected, and it began uncoiling the knot that had twisted in his gut. “I don’t suppose it takes a whole lot of E.S.P. to guess that. She also had the kindest heart around.”
“What got her? Since you said it wasn’t my father’s M-I rifle.”
“Don’t, Tanner,” she protested. “Mrs. Lundquist died of a heart attack a year before the massacre.”
“Lucky her.”
“Tanner...”
“That reminds me,” he continued, closing the door on the cereal boxes and turning to face her, leaning back against the counter. “You said someone was teaching school. How come I haven’t seen any children around? Did Charles wipe out everybody of childbearing age?”
“Of course not. Most young people leave here as soon as they can. There’s not much to offer a growing family. The few that stayed bus their children three towns over to the regional school. A lot of them spend the week with relatives and come home on the weekend. But you’re right— there aren’t too many of them.”
“And you and Lonnie haven’t contributed your share.”
He didn’t miss the tightening of her soft, generous mouth. “Clever of you to notice. Do you think I should do something about that? Maybe you could drop me off at the Gazette and I’ll get to work on it.”
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She was clearly hoping to goad him. He gave her a brief smile. “Don’t try sarcasm with me, Ellie. It doesn’t work. Besides, I think you’d be wasting your time with Lonnie.”
She lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eye. “Got any other suggestions?”
She knew that he did, and that was enough. He didn’t have to say a word, he just let his smile broaden slightly before he turned back to his perusal of her cupboards. “So which victim do we visit next?” he asked. “Unfortunately you’re the only cripple around here, but maybe we can find someone who carried emotional scars.”
“Tanner,” she said, her voice low. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
He knew exactly what she was talking about. So much for fooling her with his callous attitude; she’d seen right through to the very real shock and anger he was still trying to suppress. He held himself still for a moment, then turned and moved behind her. She didn’t turn, didn’t meet his gaze, she just waited.
He put his hand on her shoulder, lightly, feeling the tension beneath her skin, feeling the bone and heat and surprising muscle. “Thank you,” he said.
She looked up then, over her shoulder, into his eyes, and her smile was breathtaking. She parted her lips, about to say something, he didn’t know what, but he was leaning toward her, planning to cover her mouth with his and stop whatever words might come tumbling forth, when he heard the footsteps on the wooden porch outside.
He was six feet away from her when Doc Barlow stormed in the kitchen. He stopped short when he spied Tanner in the post-dawn shadows, for a moment his expression slipped, and Tanner saw something he wished he hadn’t.
“What are you doing here?” Doc blurted out. “Jesus, Tanner, you didn’t spend the night here?”
“No, he didn’t spend the night here.” Ellie said with a trace of asperity. “Not that it’s anybody’s business but mine if he did. I would have thought Ginger told you—I lent Tanner my car last night so I wouldn’t be late for bridge.”